


The Day Luna Nova Went Gay

by Hikarilie



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Age gap (not a major point), Comedy, Everyone is hot for Akko, F/F, Fluff and Crack, innuendos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikarilie/pseuds/Hikarilie
Summary: When Akko enlists Sucy's help to gain her crush's attention, things end up quickly getting out of hand as all of Luna Nova falls in love with the klutz at once.





	1. A Disaster is Surely Brewing

Growing up with thirteen siblings – not counting extended family – is a very, very quick route to learning how not to care about being surrounded by people, their chaos and grating conversations. Sucy Manbavaran was surely an expert at keeping to herself and filtering out stupid chitter-chatter she couldn't care less about. But even though she had become used to the pace at the haven where she lived in back in her home country, the Filipino girl was still somewhat relieved when she ended up at Luna Nova, a place far removed from Ramza's hectic abode.

But that calm from her life at home was never enjoyed for long, because her stars clearly were not aligned with her on the day she enrolled at the academy. It would seem so, seeing as she ended up partnering with a roommate who, somehow, managed to be even worse than her entire family at times, as if someone had transmuted a chimera out of every annoying neighbor, whiny kid and angry old coot they could find.

Though she had droned out the contents of whatever Akko's high-pitched voice was whining about to Lotte, it still subconsciously thinned away her concentration, small angry eye twitches slowly growing into hands that were trembling from anger, and thus, unable to produce the precise distillation needed for her newest concoction.

Silence hung suddenly upon the room as Sucy slammed a beaker on her desk, another failed and smoking batch having been produced as a result of her lack of concentration due to her roommate's incessant whines. With far more speed than one would expect from a witch who normally dragged herself around like a corpse, Sucy snapped out of her chair and whisked over to Akko's bed, her back arching as she stared down the Japanese stage-performer-wannabe with a glare that would kill if glares could kill – and the pink-haired potion maker's interest in researching if that was possible grew by the second. "May I know what precious issue is bothering you so much as to interfere with my work, _Kagari_?" 

Angry red eyes stared down at an innocent red pair, which shrunk into scared pinpricks. Akko eeped and squirmed at how her surname was pronounced with a serpentine hiss. In fact, the pink-haired witch seemed ready to strike at the prey in front of her, like a snake having cornered a mouse (fittingly enough). From the above bunk, demure hands placed themselves at the edge of the bed and two bright eyes looked through over-sized glasses. The girl to whom those belonged had an awkward smile on her face. "Hey, Sucy, take it easy on her. She's just having a hard time with getting Diana to notice how she, well, you know…" The red-haired girl nervously scratched the back of her head, sheepish at having to act as her roommates' mediator for the umpteenth time.

Sucy sighed and her thumb and index finger found the bridge of her nose, pinching it. "Is this soap opera still going on? Just confess to her already, Akko, and get this over with. She likes you." Bit by bit, Sucy deflated back into her usual lazy slouch, not able to keep herself angry in face of something that, at this point, had went beyond frustrating and become pitiful. Akko had been pining for the top student of Luna Nova for weeks without being able to make any sort of progress.

Akko puffed her cheeks out, her previous fright evaporating and being replaced by exasperation. "So says you!" She grabbed a pillow, resting her chin on it and sighing. "We're not talking about your average girl, Sucy. We're talking about _the_ Diana Cavendish, descendant of one of the old Nines, future head of the Cavendish clan, star student and… well… hottest girl around, really." She stopped to blush, tapping her index fingers together before continuing. "I can't just up and confess to someone like her!" The girl threw her hands out in exasperation and fell back on her bed with a groan.

"Well, you better do because I don't plan to deal with you sapping away for that hoity-toity while I'm trying to deal with my own business." A protest came from Akko's mouth at Sucy's description of her crush, but the latter hardly acknowledged it as a thought crossed her mind. Putting a hand to her chin, Sucy hmm'd in thought for a few moments, prompting Akko to cock her head sideways quizzically.

Lotte, pushing up her glasses curiously, asked, "What's on your mind, Sucy?" Her answer was a raspy sigh from the girl.

"I'm going to regret this, but… Akko, I'll help you." Sucy closed her eyes and chagrined as the brunette first squee'd in joy and then enveloped her in a tight, bone-breaking hug.

"Aaaah, Sucy, thank you, thank you, _thank you_ ~!" The Filipino pushed the brunette away, who then inquired, "But how are you going to do that?"

Going over to her desk, Sucy picked up a small notebook, scribbled a few notes down on a page and then ripped it off, handing it to Akko. "These are ingredientes for an attraction potion." As the brunette took a deep breath and opened her mouth to protest, her roommate placed a finger on her lips, leaving Akko looking very silly with her cheeks puffed out. "It's not like the Love Love Bee, before you go on about that. It's just a potion you will use to make yourself a bit more attractive to others. It should be enough to at least get Ms. Perfect interested in you and a conversation going so you two can start smooching and giving me back my peace of mind."

While Akko avoided hugging her poison-inclined friend this time out of respect, she still squealed in delight and flashed a grateful smile. Like a lightning bolt, she changed from her red shorts and plain T-shirt into the school uniform, shouting out a "thank you so so so so so so much!" to the tired alchemist as she slammed the dorm's door shut and went down the hallway.

Lotte raised her eyebrows and smiled. "That's quite nice of you. But are you sure it's going to work okay?"

Sucy sniffed, sitting back at her desk and setting to clean her beakers. "As long as that idiot doesn't mess up the ingredients, it should be fine."

Needless to say, trusting someone who still couldn't perform half of the curriculum's basic-level spells correctly without setting something or someone on fire wasn't the best idea, but really, what's the worst that could happen?

 

* * *

 

Akko hummed happily to herself, skipping along the grass with a satchel hanging over her left shoulder. The satchel was already filled with plants, mushrooms and assorted knick-knacks to be used for the potion.

It had taken little over two hours for the brunette to skip to and fro along the campus, picking everything needed up, sometimes with the help of the school staff she kept a nice friendship with. Currently she was on the outskirts of campus, her brown shoes crushing the meadow's grass beneath her feet. The list was crossed out for every ingredient but one, "a tuft of unicorn fur". Though normally finding such a mythical creature wouldn't be so easy, the unicorn Diana had summoned during her spectacle at the Samhain Festival had remained under the school's care, living in the forest among other magical creatures.

This amount of dedication from the usually rather lazy witch could only be prompted by Diana, the woman who inhabited her dreams and her heart. While it had not always been like this, ever since their voyage to the edge of the world, a deep friendship had been forged between the two witches who brought back Yggdrasil into the world, taking roots as deep as the magical tree's in Akko's heart. The girl who once seemed like just an arrogant snob in the way of the peppy witch's path towards becoming the new Chariot turned out to be not just talented, charming and beautiful, but also kind, reliable and loving. The more time they spent together, be it through private study sessions, picnics, card games or any of their other frequent get-togethers, the more Akko found herself becoming hopelessly infatuated. 

Now, sure, maybe using a potion to get Diana to notice her a bit more wasn't exactly the best way to go about things – kind of manipulative even –, but who could blame Akko? Though the asian girl and her former rival had become indisputably close, perhaps closer than both were with any of their friends, Diana was a product of her past and the walls she put around herself remained tall and thick. A gift of flowers, subtle flirts and other romantic gestures fell flat on the heiress, who took them simply as nice gestures from a good friend. Whether it was her lack of experience with less formal social interactions or plain cluelessness, the fact remained that the girl was about as dense as a black hole to the brunette's advances. Desperate times, desperate measures, right?

As she came to the top of a hill, she finally found Hoofy, the academy's resident unicorn. A nice breeze caressed his mane and fur, as well as Akko's hair, giving the whole scene a calm and serenity that she rarely felt in her life of hectic mishaps. She approached the majestic horse and placed a hand below his neck, scratching his hide. "Heya there, buddy." The unicorn snorted happily, enjoying the affection.

As Akko moved her hand to grab a small tuft, she heard steps behind her. Stealing a quick look over her shoulder, Akko felt her heart race. Without looking, she put her hand over the stallion's mane and retrieved the white fur, not noticing that some blue mixed in, and stuffed the tuft into her satchel.

Clad in a blue cape to protect her from the cold breeze, hair flowing oh-so-perfectly like an angel's in the wind, was Diana arriving on the hill, carrying a heavy-looking bag with her. Noticing her fellow classmate, her eyes and features perked up in surprise, but were quickly replaced by a gentle smile. "Good afternoon, Akko," said the soft voice that, when created by God, could only have been woven with gold and honey and sugar because _gaaah_.

"O-oh, hey there!" Akko waved to the blonde, shifting to try and hide her nervousness. ' _Oh gosh, why did she have to appear just now?!'_  thought the brunette to herself, palms sweaty and heart racing at the sight of the crush whose heart she was trying to weave her way into. Being near Diana was a blessing and a curse, for sure. Akko delighted in the witch's kind personality and the time she would devote to her and especially to her, but she wanted to close the distance between the girl's lips and hers so badly it hurt.

Seemingly unaware of the Japanese girl's agitation, the future head of the Cavendishes sat her bag down on the ground, opening it to reveal a decent quantity of hay mixed with oats. "Are you here to feed Hoofy?" asked the Japanese girl.

As the unicorn leaned down its muzzle to smell the roughage, Diana nodded, caressing the creature's mane. "It's become my responsibility to take care of Hoofy since he became one of Luna Nova's mascots. Taking care of a creature so majestic is something I do with pleasure and honor." Akko's heart skipped a beat. She was ceaselessly blown away by the kindness of Diana's heart. She went out of her way to spend time with her friends, especially Akko, despite having so many things to attend to. Taking care of Hoofy, helping other students and the staff, as well as her own studying… and despite that, the girl always remained prim and proper, a vision of composure and perfection. How could such a being even exist? If it were not for her physical resemblance to her aunt and cousins, the brunette might as well have guessed the girl was an angel who fell from the heavens to the door of the Cavendish estate and was then adopted.

Shuffling like the schoolgirl in love she was, Akko smiled at her. "Well, that's still very nice of you, Dia." The ghost of a bright smile crossed the heiress' face upon hearing the nickname, pronounced exquisitely as ' _Dai-a_ ' by the Japanese girl. This didn't go unnoticed by Akko, who prided herself in being close enough to Diana to use the cheesy nickname.

Diana chuckled. "I still don't know how you convinced me to accept this nickname, Akko. The way you manage to bring so many surprises and twists into my life is interesting. You're very… mesmerizing, I'd say."

 _'That's one of many words I could use for you, alright'_ , thought Akko. As she watched Diana prepare the food for Hoofy, a realization came to her and she facepalmed.

"Oh, gosh! I came here to see him and didn't even think about bringing any treats!"  She rubbed her right shoulder, guilt pouring in. She came here to take some of the unicorn's fur and didn't even think of bringing him a treat or something. She needed to show more kindness if she ever wanted to become like Shiny Chariot. 

The guilt vanished and was replaced by butterflies and rushing blood as Diana placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling gently. "You are a very kind person, Akko. Don't think less of yourself because of a small slight. After all, it was your kindness that brought me back to this school and that helped bring magic back into the world, wasn't it?"

Flashing an awkward smile, born from a mix of sheepishness and embarrassment, Akko laughed. "Y-yeah, I suppose…"

It took all the girl had to suppress a squeak when the blonde angel held her hand with an inviting smile. "You can help me feed him, then. What do you think?" 

Hoping she wasn't about to pop a vein from the blood rushing to her face, the brunette nodded wordlessly but with a bright smile slowly growing into her cheeks. She leaned down besides Diana to help feed the unicorn, who pranced happily after eating his meal. Once they were done, Diana stopped for a moment to appreciate the view of the academy they got from the hill and sighed wistfully.

"It's a very nice day," pondered the heiress.

"Y-yeah…" stammered the brunette, turning to gaze at the curves of Diana's rosy lips. "So nice."

Diana closed her eyes for a moment, deep in thought, then spoke. "I believe I have some free time in my schedule. Would you like to accompany me for this afternoon, Akko?" The blonde shot her a smile, and she was sure her heart skipped a bit.

" _Yes!_ " said Akko, a bit too loudly, scaring the unicorn who snorted. The Japanese girl cleared her throat, blushing. "Ehe. Yeah."

Her blush intensified as Diana took her hand again. "Shall we go, then?"

Through her embarrassment, Akko felt the genuineness of the heiress' words wash over her with nice, comforting warmth. "No better time than now!" she stated proudly, marching ahead with Diana in tow, prompting a chuckle from the blonde.

 

* * *

 

Sighing dreamily as she walked into her room, Akko fell to her bed and hugged a pillow tight. "I suppose you bumped into Ms. Perfect?" asked Sucy from her desk, where a chemistry kit was set-up and in use. The beaker she was currently mixing contained a bubbling dark blue liquid over an active burner. A very happy "mhmm!" confirmed her suspicions.

Nose deep into a volume of _Night Fall_ , Lotte smiled. "Oh, that's great, Akko! What did you two do?" 

"We fed Hoofy together, then we walked for a bit, talking about Shiny Chariot and how she thinks I'm progressing in my studies and she was so close to me the whole time and aaaah~!" Akko squealed once more, making Sucy grind her sharp teeth.

The red-haired girl sighed dreamily. "That sounds so romantic…" She closed her eyes, thoughts going no doubt towards a mushy scene from one of her favored books. 

"Yeah, yeah, that's very sweet, but where are the ingredientes I asked for?" complained Sucy, trying to cut through the tirade of the two hopeless romantic girls before it dragged on any longer. With an "oh!", the resident Luna Nova klutz lifted herself off bed and handed her roommate the satchel, the contents of which were promptly dropped inside the beaker with the purple liquid. Adding a drop of some cyan solution to it, the potion maker started stirring the potion, a minty scent overtaking the room and everyone's noses but Sucy's, who'd long had her sense of smell impaired after exposure to so many chemicals.

Setting the heater to the needed temperature, Sucy rose from the chair and started changing into her sleepwear. "The potion will boil overnight. At morning, the only thing left to do will be adding a thread of your hair."

The brunette on the adjacent bed nodded, lightly kicking her feet in anticipation. "Thanks, Suce! I'm really happy you're doing this for me." 

"As long as you shut your useless lesbian mouth once this is over." Sucy laid on her bed and dragged the covers over her body. Akko had protested and retorted, but the words were lost on Sucy's ears, for she was already drifting off to a peaceful slumber with forests of mushrooms that lacked any whiny roommates.

Harrumphing one last time, Akko hugged her pillow and fell into bed, sighing happily. She couldn't wait for tomorrow. Soon, she drifted into her own dreams of a beautiful blonde witch caressing her cheek and leaning her face in close to hers.

 

* * *

 

Akko scratched her neck after the potion was sprayed one last time on her neck. "Damn, Sucy, this is itchy!" 

"Should fit you well, then," said the pale-looking girl as she placed the potion back on the desk and lazily adjusted her tie. "You're a very persistent rash." 

Once dawn broke through the dorm's window, the girls woke up to started getting ready for the day. Or, well, Sucy and Lotte did.

Surprisingly enough for the brunette, she had dressed herself and brushed her hair before the sun rose. The potion had a thread of her hair added to it, and it turned into a salmon pink color. Sucy promptly placed the liquid inside on an unused perfume bottle to spray it on the Japanese girl's skin and clothes. 

"Nag nag nag, I know you love me~" Nothing could bring her mood down today, not even Ms. Grumpy. Confidently, she hung the teal bag she was using to carry her books for today's classes over her right shoulder.

Soon enough the three girls left the room and made their way to the classroom for their Magic Numerology class.

When they reached the hallway where the classroom was located, Sucy heard a small gasp from Akko and raised an eyebrow, before looking ahead. Sure enough, Diana Cavendish was by the entrance of the classroom talking to Ms. Badcock. Likely about some egghead thing only a professor's pet like her would enjoy, thought Sucy. 

The talk between student and teacher was short-lived, however, as the latter entered the classroom to prepare her materials for class. Sensing her opportunity, the brunette skipped ahead, closing the distance between her and the object of her affection in a few seconds.

" _Ohayoooou!_ " chirped the brunette in her native language, smiling brightly at the blonde.

Pushing a tea-green lock behind her ear, Diana smiled back. "Good morning to you as well, Akko. How are you doing today?" 

A confident smirk crossed Akko's mug. "Oh, just fine. I feel that today's gonna be a day to remember." She chuckled.

Diana raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and why is that?" Her voice was half curiosity and half amusement at the girl's confidence.

"Oh, call it _intuition_." Akko put a closed fist to her chest, her posture giving off an aura of pride.

Diana nodded, smiling at her fellow student's antics. "It's a possibility. After all, you _are_ quite the magnet for… diversions in our prestigious academy's routine, let's say." 

The brunette puffed her cheeks on being called out for her recurring misadventures, to which the blonde giggled. She placed a hand on Akko's shoulder, which might or not have led to an explosion of butterflies on the girl's stomach. "We need to be getting ready for class now. I'll see you later, Akko." As Diana walked into the classroom and her hand left the girl's shoulder, her fingers grazed ever so slightly against the poor lesbian's jaw. She froze in place, being able to process only a squeak through her loving daze.

Lotte and Sucy approached the girl, who was now reduced to a blushing, squeaky statue. The red-haired bookworm giggled. "Oh, you two are such adorable lovebirds."

Sucy, meanwhile, shivered as though a cold breeze had passed through her pale skin. "I feel like puking." To emphasize her point, she stuck her tongue out with a 'bleh' sound.

Their peppy roommate came down from her reverie with a dreamy sigh. However, a thought occurred to her. "Hey, Suce, are you sure the potion's working? Diana didn't seem any… well, closer to me than usual, I guess." 

With a roll of her eyes, the Filipino sighed and answered. "Chill out, Casanova. The potion's magic takes a while to work. And it's already starting to work, I'd say." She pointed somewhere behind the brunette. Turning her head, Akko saw that two girls had stopped in their tracks and were staring at her. Akko raised her eyebrows and stared back at them, to which they gasped and quickly made their way into the classroom, faces dusted with red.

The brunette whistled, pleased. "Get ready for my irresistible charm, Lady Cavendish." Akko gun fingered and posed, receiving a giggle from her red-haired roommate and a facepalm from her pink-haired one.

"Let's just go into class already. I can't deal with you being even more confident than usual, it's sickening," said Sucy, crossing the threshold into their Magic Numerology class. The rest of the Red Team followed behind her. 

Nothing could steal away her thunder.

 

* * *

 

Akko deflated in defeat. Not even her excitement could last for long when faced with its greatest enemy: absolute boredom.

"Now, as we have already studied, magic functions through energy transferal. Much like kinetic energy, magic cannot be destroyed, having to be transformed into another form of energy so as to meet the conditions of the Law of Conversation of Magic…"

Face met desk as the brunette groaned. "Whoever thought it was a good idea to make magic, the best and most amazing thing in the world, into something as boring as Ms. Badcock's class, should…"

"Should what, Ms. Kagari?" retorted the bowl-haired woman, who'd obviously heard Akko's outloud rant.

The brunette stood up, blushing and wildly flailing her hands. "Ah! T-they should get a prize, of course, because your class is amazing, miss!" This exchange elicited a slew of giggles from the rest of the students, much to Akko's chagrin. The aged faculty woman raised an eyebrow behind her eyeglasses but decided not to press the young witch's ridicule further, possibly thinking the unwanted attention she received was punishment enough. She turned around and returned to her lecture.

"Good going, dunce," Sucy had a sharp-fanged smile, giggling into her hand at her roommate's misfortune.

Lotte, who sat between her two roommates, at no point seemed amused with Akko having been exposed to ridicule by the class. She harrumphed and stared at Sucy with a frown. "You really should start treating Akko better! She may not be the most perfect student, but she is dedicated and is trying her best!" Lotte crossed her arms, pushing her glasses up her nose with an air of defiance.

Akko pumped a fist into the air, grinning. "You tell her what's what, Lotte! Whoo!" Sucy, however, seemed unfazed.  

"And what's more," the girl in the spectacles continued, pointing an index finger to the object of her discontent's face, "maybe a girl as determined, precious and cute as Akko doesn't deserve a _complete jerk_ like you pushing her around!" 

"…Oi?" was the Filipino's reply, laced with disbelief. Her face contorted into an angry snarl and her hands balled into fists on her sides.

A very unpleasant feeling shot through the brunette's gut as the situation suddenly escalated out of nowhere. "O-okay, Lotte, let's not go too far. Sucy could learn to be a better friend here and there, but deep down she cares about me and is not as bad as you're-" She was interrupted by Lotte turning around to face her, taking Akko's right hand between her palms.

Lotte shook her head. "No, Akko. I'm tired of seeing Sucy and everyone treat you like this. They keep downplaying your achievements even with the amazing things you've done! They act like you're worth nothing. When, in truth, you're worth… _everything_." Lotte leaned in closer - too close for her roommate's liking. By now, the exchange had attracted the attention of students in nearby desks, who were watching the events unfold and gossiping among themselves.

The potion maker's anger slowly left her as she put a hand to her chin, humming inquisitively at the sight before her. 

Was this the potion working its effect on her Finnish friend? Akko didn't know, all that she knew is she wanted her precious personal space back. She placed a hand on Lotte's shoulder, trying to gently push the girl back. "H-hey, Lotte, I know I'm not that bad of a catch but you're getting _toocloseformyliking_ -" she was cut short by the overly touchy girl closing the distance between them, touching the tips of their noses and leaving their lips mere inches apart.

Lotte's free hand cupped Akko's cheek, her face blushing and her breathing husky, a drop of sweat rolling down her left temple. Was it just Akko, or did Lotte have a pink tint around her eyes' irises?

"Akko, I want _so desperately_ to…"

" _ **Ahem!**_ "

A loud clearing of the throat rang through the classroom's growing tension like a hot knife on butter, coming from Ms. Badcock, who looked thoroughly displeased. "May I know what's the meaning of this, Ms. Jansson?" The entire class had stopped what they were doing at this point to stare at the bizarre episode.

Lotte blinked and realized her compromising position, yelping and scooting back into her seat. "I-I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me!" Akko, now freed from the clutches of the sweet girl turned hungry… was it _lover_?… took a moment to recompose herself. What in the name of the Nines had just happened? This was definitely not the Lotte she knew. Something was off. She looked at the girl's eyes - which quickly darted away from hers, embarrassed - and noticed that there was no pink tint around her irises anymore. Had she imagined things?

The potion maker seemed to believe something was off as well, as she raised from her chair, holding Lotte's hand and motioning for the bookworm, who was close to tears, to accompany her. "I believe my friend's sick, professor. If you'll allow me, I'd like to take her to the infirmary." 

The teacher nodded and waved her hand dismissively, clearly wanting for this to be over with so she could get back to her class. "You and I will be having a talk with Ms. Holbrooke later, missy," she shot at Lotte, who was sobbing lightly. Without another word, Sucy left class with her in tow.

Though the class resumed, Akko was left bewildered at what had just unfolded. Considering all of her misadventures across her time at Luna Nova, this one had to be the most embarrassing yet thus far, or at least it felt like such as the eyes of her classmates bore into her back for the remainder of the class. 

' _What the heck is going on?_ '

 

* * *

 

After morning classes were done, the brunette crossed the hallways alone, book bag hanging limply from her hand. She hadn't seen or heard from her roommates since Lotte's outburst earlier. Right now she was torn between embarrassment, confusion, worry and… more embarrassment if she was going to be honest. She could hear the entire class whispering about her through the entire morning, and even now she could feel stares directed at her from all over the corridor. Though… the whispering had stopped, it seemed?

A girl skipped to her side, blueish purple hair nicely tied up in a ponytail with a red bow. "Good morning, Akko!" The brunette recognized her as Mary, one of many acquaintances she held in Luna Nova.

"Oh, heya, it's been a while! How are you?" Akko asked gently, deciding to push down her frenzy of emotions down for a bit. A nice talk with a friend would make her day better for sure.

The girl's eyes seemed a bit sullen. "Oh, honestly, they could be better. I've been growing apart from Avery lately." Ah, Avery. Akko held a bit of a bias against the witch for the way she, Hannah and Barbara had treated her upon her arrival at the leyline terminal, which was just plain mean. But she supposed she might try to approach the girl again eventually – it had worked with the Blue Team girls, at least.

She gasped as a hand held hers, fingers interlocking. "But it's fine. I have you here with me, right?" 

"R-right…?" Though they had always been on friendly terms, Akko and Mary weren't close. Definitely not close enough for her to suddenly hold her hand. This was wrong, oh god too wrong.

Her attempt at releasing her hand from the girl's failed spectacularly, as not only was her hand held tighter, Mary went for the brunette's free hand, now holding both with an iron grip. Mary's face had a streak of red across it, and her mouth hung open a bit as her eyes admired the Japanese girl's eyes and features. "C-could you please…" started Akko, a pit growing in her chest.

Mary ignored her. "I'd never noticed how beautiful you are…" The witch leaned in closer, a bit of drool hanging from the side of her mouth.

_'Oh my god, she's drooling!'_

It was at this moment that Akko noticed the other students weren't whispering or gossiping or even talking anymore, they were just… staring, bodies rigid. As the flailing Japanese witch looked back at the girl holding her hands, she noticed there was a pink tint around her irises. Just like with Lotte. 

Breathing raggedly, her face flushed red, Mary suddenly lunged forward to steal a kiss from Akko's lips. Unable to untangle her hands from the witch's, she closed her eyes and grimaced, waiting for the worst. Was she really going to lose her first kiss to Mary? And for a reason she couldn't fathom?

However, no pressure came to her lips, and her hands suddenly felt free.

Opening an eye, Akko glanced at what happened - another girl, who she recognized as Blair, had tackled her own roommate and both were on the ground, tossing and rolling. "You two-faced bitch! You're not going to get Akko all for yourself!" 

Wait.

What.

_Just, what?!_

From behind Akko, another voice shouted. "Neither are you, Goldilocks!" More voices raised in protest or fighting and arguing among themselves. Akko started to panic, pressing her back against the wall and putting a hand to her forehead. Her vision felt blurry. Was this the effect of Sucy's potion? But it was supposed to only slightly draw the attention of others to her, not to create a _harem_.

"Aagh!" Blair screamed in pain as her roommate swiped at her with her nails, leaving a bloody line across the girl's left cheek. With a gutural roar, Mary jumped at her and both began to exchange punches and scratches in a wild catfight. Meanwhile, some of the other students who weren't arguing were instead staring hungrily at Akko, slowly walking towards her. Their eyes held the same strange tint she had noticed in both Lotte and Mary.

She couldn't deal with this. Akko turned tail and ran away as fast as she could, which was thankfully very fast due to her athletic prowess. Turning left and right through the corridors of the school, she lost sight of her pursuers and entered a dim hallway. She leaned against a pair of closed doors.

Blood was rushing to her head and her knees felt weak.

What was she going to do? Who could she resort to for help? She was just one among this apparent army of love zombies!

Her thoughts were broken when she felt the weight behind her give in and she fell butt-first to the floor. "Ouch..." She bit her lower lip due to the pain spreading from her rear. The doors had opened behind her while she was leaning against them. Blinking rapidly to adjust to the sudden pour of light that flooded into her vision, Akko placed a hand on the floor and propped herself up to see where she was.

The entryway she was at led to the cafeteria.

Chock-full of students.

All of which had turned to look at her. 

In that brief moment of silence and calm, Akko remembered her conversation with Diana hours earlier.

Today was going to be a day to remember, alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, first attempt at writing at a fic! This probably isn't the best but, eh~ leave a comment if you wanna.
> 
> The reference to Sucy's siblings comes from chapter 5 of the official manga.


	2. Akkocalypse Now

Silence reigned over the open hall. Akko's eyes darted left and right, slowly analyzing the other students who were seated in the tables and, for the most part, currently ignoring their lunches in favor of looking at the school's apparent new hot stuff. However, unlike the girls in the hallway a few minutes earlier, these weren't making any moves, and thankfully didn't seem like they were about to start catfighting over her. 

Maybe everything would be fine if she just kept her cool. Yeah! Keeping it cool for the girls. She just needed to calmly leave the cafeteria and find either Sucy or a teacher to help her with this conundrum and everything would be, for the most part, completely fine!

Should be totally doable. Yep. Her bad luck was definitely _not_ going to screw everything up this time.

Akko took a deep breath and put on her best poker face, which consisted of an awkward smile and a twitching right eye. Stiffly, members heavy as lead, she walked over to the food trays, trying to look as collected as possible as she picked up a carton of chocolate milk. She had skipped breakfast in favor of meeting Diana as early as possible today, and it seemed lunch would elude her as well. She took a sip and then slowly made her way towards the staircase that led to the upper section of the cafeteria. From there, she should be able to go to Principal Holbrooke's office and everything would be just fine.

Weird an analogy as it was, Akko couldn't help but be reminded of one of those movies where an adventurer would explore a temple, treading carefully to avoid setting off many old-timey booby traps. The stares that seemed to try and pierce her from all directions felt like arrows about to be shot and it was not a nice feeling.

The girl was already skipping on her oh-so-beloved mashed potatoes for lunch, she didn't need impeding snu-snu doom for dessert.

Akko climbed the staircase, placing each step hesitantly, as if she was about to step on a hidden landmine that would go off at any second.

But, much to her surprise, nothing happened. Wiping her brow from sweat, Akko sighed. ' _At least it seems that stuff with Mary and the others was the worse it's going to get._ '

Her hand was reaching for the door's handle and there were no wild lesbians grabbing at her collar for a piece of the girl who saved magic. Strange as it was for things to go smoothly to Atsuko Kagari, voted Bad Luck Magnet Girl for the yearbook, she counted her lucky stars and pulled the door open, walking into the corridor behind it with a confident gait…

…only to crash face-first into something - rather, someone - taller than her.

"Ouch!" The brunette rubbed her nose. The milk carton she had been carrying spilled all over the floor. ' _Great, there goes my only sweet respite._ '

Looking up, she was met with bright, abrasive emerald eyes that held a fire of mischief in them that never went out, no matter what strong winds of discipline and educational correction may try to fan it out.

The witch in question quirked an eyebrow and raised a smirk, analyzing Akko up and down. "Oh my, Akko, are you that desperate to get a piece of me? You coulda just asked, you know." Amanda winked, placing the broom she had been holding by the wall. "Digging the perfume by the way, minty, suits you kinda nice." By the more ruffled than usual look of her hairdo, combined with the broom, Akko could only assume she had skipped class to do some of her usual air tricks. 

Akko's right eye twitched a bit more than it already did before. Amanda hadn't been affected, as she would assume by the lack of a pink tint around her eyes, but she wasn't sure if the usual her was better or worse than the alternative.

"Ha, ha, ha. Nice to see you too Amanda. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am a very busy witch and-" her sentence was cut off when the school's definite rebel placed an arm over her shoulders, pulling the girl along as she made her way to the food trays.

"Oh no, you ain't going anywhere, cutie. I know a girl who's skipped a meal or two when I see her. Come on, how else are you going to fill in some meat in those bones for that Cavendish girl to squish, eh, toots?" The smirk she held was devilish. Gazing at her hair that looked like a blazing flame of orange and salmon, Akko had to wonder if the devil itself hadn't decided to study at Luna Nova to get some kicks.

Before Akko could retort, Amanda whistled as she took in the sight of the cafeteria. "Is it just me or is everyone looking at us? I know I'm jaw-dropping any time of the day, but…" Though she attempted to maintain a grin, Akko noticed the slight shift in her eyebrows. The overwhelming attention was also uncomfortable to Amanda.

The Japanese witch sighed and rolled her eyes. "If only. They're looking at me."

Her companion clicked her tongue, mischief giving a bit of leeway to curiosity. "Wow, what did you do this time? I mean, those are some bed eyes if my gaydar isn't mistaken. Did they finally recognize you from the whole saving the world thing or…?" 

Akko threw her hands into the air in exasperation. "I didn't do anything! I just asked Sucy to make an attraction potion so I could get Diana to…" she bit her tongue as she noticed her faux pas, but it was too late. No potential teasing material escaped the trained ears of Amanda O'Neill. A chuckle filled with mirth erupted from the tomboy's throat.

"By Jennifer, this is too precious! You couldn't get your useless lesbian ass to confess to cabbage hair and you went for a _potion_?" Amanda shifted, her spine upright as she lifted an index finger to the air and proceeded to do an impression of her crush. "By the Nines, Akko, you should know better than to use underhanded solutions so unbecoming of a witch. I am thoroughly disappointed." Though Amanda was just trying to get a rise out of her, Akko couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. She was right, she should've known better than to try to take the daredevil route like she usually would, and she dreaded to leave her thoughts lingering for too long on what Diana would think of it.

Alas, there wasn't much she could do now. She had stuck her hand too far into the cookie jar. And if she didn't get a move on, she knew not were she might end up - possibly suffocated beneath an army of girls.

"Look, I just left a hallway with a dozen girls from Ms. Badcock's class fighting over me," Amanda whistled, impressed, something that Akko ignored as she went on, "and I really, _really_ don't want to stay here long enough to find out if the same is going to happen to all the girls here."

There was a moment of silence.

"You're so screwed, Kagari."

"Tell me something new."

Amanda chuckled. "Well, whatever it seems you did, I haven't fallen for it yet. Guess I'm even more irresistible than you." At this, Akko rolled her eyes so hard she was afraid she'd pop a vein. Though, it was true - she wondered if there was a reason for Amanda to not have been affected, at least yet. "Getting this show on the road is priority _uno_ , then, Cavendish would get her fancy panties in a twist if these girls got a piece of you before her. So let's just go back the way I came and…"

As the American rebel turned around, still holding Akko by the shoulders, she noticed there was a girl now blocking the door. It didn't take long to recognize her with her familiar short stature and navy blue hair tied into a ponytail by a large pink bow. Constanze was pointing her wand aggressively at Amanda. With a "beep!", a chibi metal robot walked and stood between her and the duo, looking as haughty and angry as a robot with a big head could. 

"How dare you hold Akko in such an affable manner, traitor! What makes you think she would want to engage with your sort, you drop-out in progress?!" the Stanbot complained in its little high-pitched voice, arms flailing in a cute way that made Akko _think_ it was trying to raise an angry fist.

The Japanese witch noticed the red-haired girl's arm tense around her shoulders. Though Amanda maintained an exterior of calm and nonchalance, the words she spoke in reply had a hint of hurt in them. "Drop-out in progress? Come on, Conz. That's just rude, talking to your dear roommate like that, wouldn't ya say? Besides…" and here, Akko felt herself being pulled closer into the girl's side by her arm, its hand finding her cheek. "Why would Akko even want to date a pipsqueak that can't utter a word, huh?"

Akko gulped and turned her head slowly to face Amanda. ' _Oh, no, gosh please no…_ '

Her worst fears were confirmed when she saw a pink tint had, somewhere in the middle of this exchange, encircled the fiery girl's irises. 

' _Oh, fuck._ '

With surprising agility for such small hands, the German engineer disassembled her Stanbot and reassembled it into a rifle, storing her wand inside as ammunition. From the holster came the bot's squeaky voice, stern and cross. "Take back your cockamamie balderdash, you loiterer, unless you wish for a swift defeat!"

"Oh, look who's getting all wordy today! Got a word calendar to catch up with, huh?" The daredevil nuzzled Akko's cheek, and the head of Red Team felt like screaming. Whatever protest she could've belted out died could barely ignite as her body and mind were locking up from anxiety.

"I mean, really, imagine what it would be like being your girlfriend or even your wife. 'Atsuko Kagari von Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger'? She'd die before her wedding vows were done." Constanze's eyebrows furrowed a bit but her fighting stance did not falter an inch, rifle held with the precision only an engineer like her could have. "Oh, and your hair smells of machine grease, y'know? Makes sleeping in that room even more of a chore than getting through class." 

Unfazed by the mockery, the navy-blue-haired witch scoffed. "I wouldn't know, my sense of smell has all but been impaired in the aftermath of the smell of gym death you carry all the time," came the reply from Stanbot.

Akko felt herself grow smaller as Amanda snarled - perhaps even growled - at her roommate. "Oh, are you suggesting I don't shower enough, Contzie?"

Constanze's eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. "Oh, so you _know_ what a shower is! Color me surprised, O'Neill. Next up, you should learn the concept of a _hairbrush_."

Her retort done, Constanze rolled to the side to dodge a bolt of green energy fired at her. As she raised her rifle and aimed it at her American roommate's forehead, Akko forced herself out of Amanda's grasp and stood between the two, forcing both to hold their weapons still.

"I can't believe this!" She threw both angry glares. "Could you two just stop fighting and teasing each other?! That's horrible!" Akko's hands balled into fists. Even if it was because of some dumb potion spell thing, she still hated to see her friends in a stand-off.

Amanda tsk'd. "I'm just doing it 'cuz I, well, you know, I find you…" The witch blushed and remained silent. Huh. So it seemed that even the brash and reckless Amanda O'Neill had trouble speaking about her feelings, potion or not.  

"Well, what you're feeling is not real!" Akko grabbed her forcefully by the shoulders and shook her angrily. "Snap out of it! Come oooon!"

All was still for a short moment.

And then, Amanda smirked. "Looks like my cute toots likes to play it rough too, heh? Don't worry, I'm just going to care of this ankle-biter. After that you can show me a bit more of that somewhere… private, eh?"

She winked to Akko, and the Japanese witch felt the blood drain from her face. Also a sudden urge to puke. Despite a growing hunger resulting from her lack of nourishment, she was grateful for not having eaten anything today. Gently, Amanda pushed Akko aside and the stand-off was about to restart. Akko watched the scene in horror, running the possibilities through her head.

' _What do I do, what do I do…?!_ '

And then, a metallic clang followed by a "splosh" echoed through the room. Amanda's face went blank, her emerald eyes growing wide and her mouth going agape, wand-holding arm limp at her side. "A-Amanda?!" Akko yelped in terror.

The red-haired daredevil didn't faint immediately, but she certainly did once she slipped on the puddle of chocolate milk on the floor and hit her head on the linoleum floor. Her orange and salmon locks were dripping with some weird-looking beige cream. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh…!" Today was clearly going to be a nonstop ride of panic for Atsuko Kagari. She hated seeing her friends hurt, and it was even worse when it had been caused by her, innocuous as her original intent for that cursed potion was.

Akko sought out the reason for what had just happened. Constanze, who was also confused by the sudden assault on her opponent, did the same.

They found their answer at the sight of Barbara, breath ragged, holding a food tray that was currently dripping with mashed potatoes. "Hannah, she's down! Take care of Constanze!" 

On cue, a flash of green magic shot from the right and hit said German girl squarely on the shoulder, making her drop the rifle. The girl cried out in pain and was knocked a few feet to the side, where she landed on her right arm with a thud. The spell-caster stopped by the girl's figure and kicked away her rifle, leaving the girl completely vulnerable. Hannah placed her hands on her hips and smirked arrogantly. "Not so powerful now, huh, shrimp?" 

Holding her shoulder, Constanze lifted herself and limped away, defeated. Her face, however, was absolutely _furious_ , like the Japanese girl had never seen on the girl's usually deadpan features. " _Ich zeig' dir, wer ein Shrimp ist…_ " she scowled and made her way out of the scene, her Stanbot having reassembled itself and perched its damaged body on her shoulder.

There was a brief moment of silence, of course, as those present took in the fact they had _heard Constanze speak_.

' _If I survive this, I'll have quite the long letter to write home._ ' Akko ruminated. '… _Assuming I don't get expelled first._ '

Akko felt her knees weak. Any time to process the situation was robbed from her when the tag team grabbed each one of her hands and pulled her towards the corridor. She yelped and fought to not lose her balance and tumble behind them. "H-Hannah? Barbara? Where are we going?!" While the brunette had been expecting some sort of help, for that to be the two girls who scorned her the most during her first months at Luna Nova was unexpected.

A frantic clamor of angry, jealous voices surged from beneath them as the students climbed the stairs to try to remove Akko from the dastardly duo's hands. Those who weren't fast enough to get to the stairs started climbing the pillars with a savageness that reminded the girl in the limelight of the time she furiously straddled herself to Shooting Star.

Akko and her rescue team entered the corridor as a tsunami of loving rage poured in from behind, firing spells, flinging trays and chucking whatever they could find at the assailants. They evaded the attacks with a flair of elegance, as expected of such noble girls. Because, hey, if we're going to run away from a mob of berserk homosexuals, might as well do it like a _proper lady I guess_.

Akko was scared. While her fan club was only aiming at the bullies turned friends, each tray hitting the wall with enough force to bend and chair breaking into pieces only a feet or two away from her made her heart skip enough beats for her to wonder if she'd have a heart attack. But, silver linings - if Hannah and Barbara were working together, that meant they, somehow, were free of the curse. Well, at least for now. Right? That was a bit of luck on her side.

It was a few more moments of dashing through the corridors (which probably didn't help the five years of detention she certainly had after today) before she got any answers. Fluttering her eyelids, calmly dodging the attacks flung at her as though she was avoiding fluffy pillows, Barbara turned her head over her shoulder to face Akko as they dashed in escape. With a voice sweet as honey, but still… _off_ , the girl of noble lineage replied. "Oh, don't worry, Akko! We're taking you somewhere safe!"

Hannah also turned to look at her. "Just give us a bit of time to lose these dolts!" 

Their eyes were pink. Of course. Honestly, the Japanese witch could barely be bothered to feel surprised at this point, she was just annoyed about being constantly stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to be passive and reactive. "Oh, a safe place, you don't say…" Akko closed her eyes and grit her teeth.

Stealing a glance behind her - and then snapping her neck forward after the horrifying sight of dozens of girls foaming at the mouth for her -, she pondered her options. She could try to escape, for sure, and it _could_ work. The cost of failing, however, would be enormous.

Maybe she should just close her eyes already and give up, let herself be dragged away to whatever fate awaited her sorry butt…

And then, the words she learned that night inside the Blue Moon Abyss echoed within her mind.  _Phaidoari Afairynghor. You do not get the things that you dream of, you get the things you work for._

_'Alright, that's about enough being carried around like a sack of potatoes.'_

She dug her boots into the ground and forced herself, Hannah and Barbara to skid to a halt. With a bit of a struggle, she removed her left hand from Hannah's tight hold and retrieved her wand from her sash, wasting no time in reciting an incantation.

" _Metamorphie Faciesse_!"

A puff of smoke, and Akko was gone. All of the commotion stopped for a moment, the only sound being a spoonful of mashed potatoes splashing on the floor. And then a collection of of desperate voices broke out in panic.

"Oh, Nines, where's Akko?! She's completely gone!"

"My sweet bagel, come back to me!"

"This is you two's fault!"

"Our fault?! _You_ are the crazy wet bitches here, you low-life!"

"Why, you…!"

As essentially all of Luna Nova's student body broke out in a series of screaming and shoving matches, an orange mouse quietly trod along the wall, hiding itself in the shadows. Her spur of the moment decision was a work of genius - ain't it completely empty in this noggin', no siree! - but it wasn't going to work for long. She would need help, and fast.

But who would she be able to rely on when everyone in this school wanted a piece of her sweet body in bed?

…

' _Oh, there. There are the images. Thanks, brain._ '

With a sigh, she marched on, little paws hitting the ground as her head wandered in thought about where to go next. She decided, in the end, to go for looking Sucy - she'd probably have a solution to this if she wasn't infected herself. Besides, she didn't know where Diana was.

Transforming herself back into a human after making sure she was far, far away from her mob, Akko bolted in the direction of her dorm, the most likely placed her mushroom fanatic roommate would be. 

In her dash, she passed by the library. A head with a mane of gold and tea green locks raised from a book.

"Running in the hallways again? Ah, Akko…" Closing her book and placing a bookmark on the most recent page, Diana raised from her seat and decided to go after the brunette girl that seemed so fond of disrupting school norms. If only because the library was eerily devoid of other students today.

And besides, she deserved a break from her rigorous routine of studies. She had to learn to not push herself so hard. And talking to Akko was always comforting - and perhaps even fun - to her.

For no particular reason. Absolutely not.

Diana left the library, her book beneath her arm, as she sought out her as of recent very close friend. Despite her annoyance at the girl's disregard for academy etiquette, she was unable to frown thinking of Akko. She smiled fondly.

"I can only wonder what's the next surprise you will introduce into my life, Ms. Kagari." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's another chapter, shorter than the first but hopefully still good. I'm still a very green writer, and I appreciate any comments you might have.
> 
> Hope I made you laugh! Thanks for reading~


	3. A Match Maid in Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one took a while, life's been busy. ;w;  
> Have a meaty chapter with some ~groovy~ hi-jinks.  
> Thanks for those gave me kudos and comments, each one makes my little gay heart leap with joy. Enjoy~

Tiptoeing down the hallway, wand held firmly between her two sweaty palms, Akko carefully approached her dormitory. Though the chaos she had created earlier had thankfully drawn most if not all of the lascivious lunatic lesbian lovers legion to the other side of the academy, her lovely luck leveraged low lately. 

And in anxiety arose alliterations, apparently.

Akko gasped, crouching by the door to an adjacent room - the door to her dorm was open. Perhaps one of the infected girls had taken refuge in her room, lurking in the shadows in wait to tackle her. Or worse, they could be going through her things. The Japanese girl shivered at the thought of the sanctity of her bed, her closet, or worse, her underwear drawer being pilfered by a stranger.

Placing a hand around her ear, she stopped by the threshold of the door, placed her back to the wall and leaned her head in slightly towards the entrance. Sure enough, she could hear low unintelligible whispers.  Though she was scared of being possibly pinned down and held against her will, Atsuko Kagari would not bow down to this challenge! She was an independent woman and no girl would be allowed to simply hold her down with her hands running through her body if she could help it!

Well, except maybe Diana, if the blonde was interested. 

With a jump and a yell of " _HYAAAH!_ ", Akko took a fighting stance by the door frame and summoned her magic energy at the tip of her wand. Before she could do anything, however, the enemy - unseen, hiding behind a turned-up bed - counter-attacked, and the klutz found her head suddenly being pelted by mushrooms hitting her face with the fury of a machine gun.

"Get _out_! I've already told you, she is not here!" shouted one unmistakable raspy voice.

Akko waved her hands in front of her frantically in an attempt to slap away the fungi projectiles. The barrage stopped after a few seconds when a head clad in long pink hair raised from behind the bed and the single uncovered red eye it bore widened in surprise, then shrunk back down with annoyance. 

"Kagari, of course. Only you would be so dumb as to come to your room, the most obvious place to find you, when the entire school wants your sorry butt." Sucy's scowl easily denounced how unimpressed she was at seeing her roommate.

Spitting out a mushroom that got lodged in her mouth with a 'pfeh!', Akko placed her hands on her hips haughtily and frowned back at the Filipino. "Hey, I'll have you know it wasn't easy getting here, and I only did it to get your help!"

"Of course, like you would be able to fix this mess you made by yourself." 

"That _I_ made?! You're the one who-" Akko's angry tirade was interrupted by the bottom of a pan, of all things, peeking out from behind the mattress. Tufts of ginger peeked out from beneath the rim. "I-is that you, Akko?" a meek voice asked.

Lotte held her wand so tightly that her knuckles were white. The poor girl, currently using a turned-down pan as a helmet, was shaking all over. She had seen some stuff.

"Uwaah!" Akko used her left arm to cover her face and thrust her wand out, pointing at her timid roommate. "Stay back, Lotte! You're too adorable to be corrupted!" Besides, she'd had enough of the witch in spectacles this morning and was not eager for an encore. 

The girl eeped in response and hid again. "D-don't hurt me, please! I didn't mean to do any of those weird things back in Ms. Badcock's class, I swear!" Sucy, meanwhile, sighed deeply and rolled her eyes.

"Stop twisting your panties, Romeo." From inside the lab coat she was wearing, Sucy retrieved a vial, the lid corked. It was filled with a dark, almost black liquid. "I prepared an antidote and already served it to Lotte. She can't feel the effects of the attraction potion anymore."

Akko's eyes widened and her hands joined together as the girl twirled happily. "Aah, you're so amazing, Suce! I knew I made the right choice by seeking your help!" A thought sprung forth in her mind, prompting Akko to stop in her tracks. "Wait a sec, why weren't you affected too? Amanda was the only one who wasn't affected immediately by the potion. But even then, it happened anyway after a few minutes." 

Sucy grumbled. "Of course it didn't, you dolt. My body has developed a rejection to most toxins and my sense of smell is mostly impaired. Besides…" The evil-scientist awkwardly rubbed her right shoulder. "…I'm asexual."

The unexpected revelation left the dorm silent for a while.

"Oh." Akko blinked. "A-anyway, we can deal with issues of sexuality and what-not when I'm not on the top of the school's secret sexy menu." Leaving the threshold that separated the dorm from the hallway, the girl sat on the edge of her bed, contemplating the current situation. "So, you said you have an antidote, right?"

Raising again from her hiding spot, the orange-haired girl took off her pan-helmet and cooed out the faerie that lived in it. She patted it, and the spirit purred happily. "Yes, the one she used on me to bring me back to normal."

"Unlike a certain idiot who I am remiss to share the same living quarters with, I know how to distinguish the correct ingredients for a potion." Sucy flashed her shark teeth, proud of herself. "So, yes, I was able to brew a cure for the effect of attraction towards you - or as I'd like to call it, bad taste."

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm a smokin' slice of heaven!" Akko's cheeks puffed out. "What would an asexual girl know of that? I mean, look at this nice, toned body mama's got~" She lifted one of her toned, athletic legs.

"They're pretty muscular, you have to agree," Lotte told the girl sharing the bed-fort with her. 

Sucy scoffed and shrugged. "I know about that. It's not like you and your short skirt make any secret of it."

Despite the sarcastic rhetoric, Akko crossed her arms and grinned coyly as though she'd won the argument. "What do you mean about the ingredients, though? I made sure to pick everything carefully." Her eyes followed a silent Sucy who grabbed a beaker with a few drops of pink at the bottom. Akko recognized it as the beaker that held the attraction potion earlier that same fateful morning. With a pair of tweezers, the ghoulish scientist retrieved a blue strand from the bottom of the glass container and presented it to her brunette roommate.

"Everything, except for the unicorn fur. You grabbed strands of _mane_ instead, you idiot." Akko reminisced. She hadn't looked carefully because Diana showed up at the exact moment. ' _Ugh, you pathetic lesbian_.'

" _That_ is why my potion didn't work like it should have." With her free hand, Sucy flicked Akko's nose. The girl yelped and held her red button nose, sniffing. "I had everything I needed for the cure, but it's not going to solve the problem for the rest of the school. We'd be buried alive if we tried spraying the infected witches one by one."

Akko groaned and fell back into bed. "But what else are we going to do?!"

Lotte, who had mostly remained quiet through the exchange hmm'd in thought, catching the attention of her fellow girls. "Say, Akko, do you remember what Ms. Badcock was talking about in class this morning?"

"Don't you think you're asking too much of her pea-sized brain?" Sucy answered first, grinning.

"What did I ever do to you, Sucy?!" Akko shouted exasperatedly, punching her mattress with a fist.

"Let's see, alphabetically or chronologically?"

" _Anyway_ ," Lotte cut in before the argument escalated, "she was talking about transferring magic to other forms of magical energy. So, perhaps, if we could somehow transfer the potion's magic into the students' wands, maybe that would be enough to undo the spell?"

Sucy scratched her chin. "Interesting idea, but we still run into the same problem. The procedure for a transformation of that sort is not so simple. We would need a carefully drawn transmutation circle in range of those infected, and if we were successful, it still wouldn't be enough to transfer the magic to more than a few wands. Though I doubt we'd finish even a single one before we drowned in an angry mob."

"T-then what do we do?" Lotte's eyes found the floor and her finger lazily drew circles on the bed's frame while the faerie tried to cheer her up.

From a drawer Sucy produced a slip of paper that, once unfolded, showed to be a botanic travel guide for exotic magical plants. Her eyes skimmed through the information. "This school is fucked and I needed an excuse to visit Botswana, anyhow. I'm sure we can take the leyline out if we slip out quietly enough." Her eyes lifted off the guide and wandered to Akko. "Without her, of course, that one's luck is going to doom us."

"Hey! And you can't just go on a vacation with what's going on!" Akko stomped a foot angrily, prompting a floorboard to spring up and hit her face, inadvertently proving Sucy's point. "Ow ow owie…" She rubbed her poor nose for the second time today. "Befides," she spoke with a lisp, "cant'oo unfo the effefts of the pofion on me?"

Sucy shook her head. "The magical energy of an unicorn is not something I can easily dissolve once it's settled in. It could be several days before the potion wears off you _or_ the other students." 

The Finnish witch had leaned down to give the faerie an Eskimo kiss. "If only there was a way to send the magic of the potion all at once…"

They were all out of ideas, as the following awkward silence clearly showed. 

It was just as awkwardly broken by an explosion that shook the floor. Akko and Lotte both screamed and covered themselves - the former with her bed covers and the latter with her pan -, while Sucy only wobbled like a bobblehead. 

The three gathered at the window to see smoke rising from somewhere in the floor level of the academy's right wing. Bright emerald fire licked at the pillars. Akko's hands griped the windowsill and her eyes shrunk down to panicked pinpricks.

Her desperation shifted into resolve. "It's settled! We are _not_ waiting for days so the potion wears off!" She slammed a fist on the desk determinedly.

"Luna Nova might not survive it…" griped Lotte.

A group of goblins and minotaurs had gathered at the yard, throwing buckets of water at the fire that had started. A teacher was joining in on their efforts, casting spells to hold the smoke from spreading into the rest of the school. At least they were aware of things, which was good. 

"Well, unless you have any bright ideas…" replied the scientist who, very subtly, showed a hint of demure sadness through her deadpan features. Sucy fetched the vial holding the antidote from her cloak and stared at its contents, sloshing around as her fingers moved it left and right. Finally, with a sigh, she placed it on the desk and leaned against the wall. This entire situation was stressing the trio out.

' _A bright idea, huh?_ '

The brunette's eyes left the magical fire, which was slowly being put out, and looked towards the New Moon Tower. The Sorcerer's Stone radiated, a dazzling sight that stood out like a sore thumb among the growing chaos overtaking the prestigious academy, a bastion of normalcy in a tempest. She gazed at the rotating gem as though it might hold some secret, some shining epiphany ever so slightly out of her reach.

Akko slumped pathetically with a tired moan, her chin now resting on the desk. She kept staring at the green light shining from outside, though now through the dense black liquid of the antidote, right in front of her nose. The emerald light somehow still managed to phase through the thick darkness of the brew, cutting through it and reaching her irises.

Wait a second…

"Ahah!" Akko slammed both of her hands on the table, scaring Lotte for a second and leaving the remaining Red Team member, Sucy, peeved as she secured the vial that threatened to roll down into the floor. "Drop the only antidote we have, will ya?!"

"Oops, sorry!" Akko scratched the back of her head sheepishly. "So, check this one out: what if we transfer the potion's magic, like we talked about, but instead to the Sorcerer's Stone?" Her index finger waggled eagerly, pointing to the tower which held the magic receptacle. "We still draw our magic from the Stone, right? So it should end up being transferred into everyone's wands and curing them!"

"Hmm." For the first time today, Sucy let a genuine smile for her clumsy friend break through her bored face. "Not a bad idea, Akko. It would require a larger transmutation circle and some more batches of my potion, but… it could work."  

"Yay!" Akko's fist pumped into the air like a punch of resolve breaking through the fog of uncertainty. "Well, I'm sure you and Lotte can work on the potion," her roommates nodded, "which would leave me to find out how to do the circle thingamajig. But where would I start…"

Her brown shoe tapped against the floor as her brain started to burn through neurons for something other than Shiny Chariot and tarts. Sucy and Lotte, busy with preparing a list of ingredients and other tools, didn't seem to have any advice of their own on that matter.

"I would presume the obvious first place to go for information would be the library, Akko," chided a dulcet tone.

Standing at the door, arms crossed and brows furrowed with the weight of worried confusion and frustration, was Diana Cavendish. 

Akko's soul jumped out of her body. "D-Diana!" She jumped on top of the desk, kicking pens and books to the floor while she spread her arms out in an attempt to cover the vision of the fire outside, similar to a kid trying to cover a vase that had been just shattered into pieces. "H-hey, fancy catching you here, Diii~!" Her voice squeaked here. "How are you enjoying your afternoon?" She laughed nervously. Drops of sweat were tearing their way down her temples to pool at her chin. They denounced how her mind was currently screaming ' _now you're fucked, Kagari, time to grab a shovel and dig your untimely grave_ '.

Diana blinked in disbelief, then harrumphed, stepping closer to the group. "Mine has been uncharacteristically quiet for reasons I'm beginning to fathom." With a hand, she motioned to the makeshift war trench that dominated half of the room. "I would assume by the overturned bed and your fellow dorm colleagues being clad in a poor excuse for warfare apparel that yours has been quite interesting."

"Uhm…" The Japanese witch bit her lower lip, her heart racing with anxiety. "Re…decorating…?" 

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Diana exhaled. "Tell me, Akko, what shall I ever do with you?" Diana turned to face the duo currently retrieving tools for their ingredient hunt. "What in blazes…" She shut her eyes for a moment, sensing the faint odor of smoke coming from outside. Her teeth gritted in indignation. "Quite literally, it seems - what have you done this time?" There was no need to question if this was related to Akko. When something smells, it's usually the klutz.

"Our prized Ms. Dunce used an attraction potion and now everyone in the school wants to snag her nethers," droned out the potion-maker of the bunch.

"S-Sucy, shut up!" Akko balled her fists in exasperation. "Diana wasn't supposed to know!"

A step on the wooden floor, and then a gorgeous face - still attractive, despite its currently chiding visage - leaned in inches from hers, hot breath grazing against the skin of Akko's nose. "And may I know why I wasn't supposed to know of this?"

Being so close to Diana, coupled with the idea that she might have to explain _why_ she asked Sucy to brew the potion, turned the girl into a gay, stumbling mess, crude a description as this may be.

"O-oh, you see, I was… uhm…"

"And for that matter," Diana placed her pointing finger on the girl's nose, prompting her ongoing blush to deepen and match her eyes, "what, exactly, would drive you to utilize something so dangerous and imprudent?"

Cornered like a tiny mouse by the ferocious feline that was Diana, Atsuko Kagari stuttered and whimpered. ' _W-What do I tell her?! I can't just say 'well you see I wanted you to get in my pants but didn't know how'! I need a way out. Excuses, excuses, oh my god brain you never work but please, JUST this once…_ '

Ding!

Akko assumed a theatrical pose, steeling her feet and throwing an open palm out to the air with all the flair of a stage artist. "I am the next Shiny Chariot! However, to reach that level, I need to learn how to deal with an audience of fans, don't I? So, I asked Sucy to brew me a potion so I could train for that! It's giving me the experience of how to handle the pressure of an adoring legion of admirers of magic!" She smirked with faux confidence.

"Really."

"R-really!" 

Diana shook her head. "Incorrigible. Do you realize how reckless your attitude was, Akko? The danger you've placed our prestigious academy in by doing this?" Faced with such dejection from her crush, Akko deflated completely, eyes falling to the ground. Her shoulders slumped and a whimper escaped her throat. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt anyone, I just…" Her hands grasped the hem of her shirt tightly, twisting at the fabric as tough it would drain away her regrets, and a tear slid down her cheek.

It was whisked away by a delicate finger. A hand slid down Akko's neck and found her shoulders. The crying girl found herself being pulled into Diana's body by a warm hug. The blonde girl smelled of lavender, the brunette noted (very important). An 'aaw' came from Lotte. 

"It's fine, Akko. What's done is done and I'm sure you had no ill intentions. For as reckless as you can be, that quality has entailed many positive and wonderful results." Diana placed her hands on the brunette's shoulders and placed a kiss on her forehead. "It's your own brand magic, after all."

The brunette, in turn, sniffled. She still wasn't feeling the best, but it was hard to stay completely desolate in the face of the heiress' kindness. "T-thanks, Diana. That's very nice of you."

They broke the hug. It took all of Akko's will to remain composed after such an intimate moment with the girl she loved and the dreamy-snarky look combo Lotte and Sucy, respectively, were giving her. "Well, now with that settled, we have a plan for fixing this."

Akko relayed their plan to transfer the magic to the Sorcerer's Stone.

"I see… while too unpolished a plan for my tastes, it is practical. Thankfully, I am quite knowledgeable in the art of alchemy."

Sucy rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out, mimicking the heiress under her breath. "Nag nag, I am quite knowledgeable in the art of having a stick up my perfect…"  She was interrupted by Lotte gently elbowing and admonishing her.

Diana took Akko's hand, forcing the hopeless lesbian to blubber a very strangled noise under her breath. "However, I will need to do some research in my study before we proceed. While you two procure the ingredients for the potion, I will be taking Akko with me to my dormitory so we can do some research. If that's okay with you?"

Sucy waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Oh, I'm sure she'll be fine with going to your room." Akko's widened eyes shot angry daggers at her. Noticing she hadn't replied, Akko turned to face the girl holding her hand and nodded frantically with a nervous "mhm!".

"Then let's go." Gently, Diana left the room with a blushing but eager Akko in tow. The latter waved a goodbye to her friends and wished them good luck with their chore.

Once they'd left, Lotte pushed up her sliding glasses. "It's nice to have Diana helping us, but don't you think it's weird she hasn't been infected at all?"

Sucy was smirking. "I have an idea as to why, but we'll worry about the princesses later. Come on." And so the duo vacated the room.

 

* * *

 

Atsuko Kagari was a resilient girl. She had been subject to many hardships in life, but with determination and bravery, she stood tall and proud when confronted by the,. Few things could whisk away her burning passion and leave her defenses open. Such a passionate girl, left undeterred and with no opponent to her iron will, would be an unmovable force.

Which is exactly why Diana existed: to melt her with every little touch and gesture, like right now.

"I must say," the British's voice cut through her reverie, "that I don't quite believe the reason you've proposed for concocting that potion."

"Eh?" Akko's head tilted sideways. 

They'd reached the door to the suite that housed the Blue Team's living space. Though it wasn't the first time she'd been here, Akko couldn't stop herself from marveling at how fancy and pristine the room was, perfectly capturing the essence of the leader of its team. They turned around the bookshelf that divided the dorm and Diana started running a hand through the spines of her books, searching for a title.

"Do not take me for a fool, Akko. You have certainly attracted more than enough attention during your time in Luna Nova, be it negative or positive." She found the tome, thick in volume and with an yellowed-out cover. Despite its age, it was very well kept, no doubt due to the heiress' penchant for tidiness. "Or have you forgotten the time you were broadcasted to the entire world along with me?"

Akko's feet shuffled on the floor and she rocked back and forth, hands fiddling behind her back. "I was just… y'know…" She didn't know to finish her thoughts without making a further fool of herself. 

The heiress placed the book on her desk and opened to the index page, the book reading in some ancient language the brunette couldn't recognize but which Diana easily parsed through. She motioned for Akko to sit on her bed, and the girl obeyed. "Now, Akko, I will be the first to admit I am not the first one would refer to when it comes to issues of courtship and the heart…"

The brunette choked on her own breath in surprise. "W-what?! How did you-"

"It was the logical conclusion upon reflection." The page she landed at contained a long section on the creation of a magic transference transmutation circle, which Diana transcribed over to a notebook with the use of an enchanted quill. As the quill wrote away without need of an user, Diana turned on her chair to face the other witch. "I will not pry deeply into this issue, for I am not the sort to delve into gossiping such as 'who likes who' like Hannah or Barbara. However…" Her fists clenched on her lap, betraying the rest of her perfectly trained composure. "I still expected you to come to me for help when necessary. After all, you were there for me in one of my most difficult moments." Diana's eyes found her lap and she seemed crestfallen. Akko's heart tugged at the sight. 

"Did I do something to not deserve your trust?"

Propping herself off the bed with a jump, Akko stood tall on the balls of her feet and shouted a hearty "Gosh, no!" to the blonde witch, who ever so slightly flinched. Akko immediately relaxed and bought her voice down. "I-I mean, no, you didn't. Of course not. You're a great friend, Diana." Far greater than she could imagine.

Not convinced, Diana crossed her arms. "Then why? It seems you were able to confide in your roommates." This conversation was one Akko really didn't want to have. She needed a way out or she would be forced to tell her feelings to Diana, and she didn't want to do that.

Or perhaps she did? After all, this uproar was all because she tried to get Diana's attention so she could make a move to push their relationship further. Would she ever have another moment like this? 

Patiently, Diana awaited a reply. Akko met her piercing gaze and decided it was settled. This was it, no more beating around the bush. 

Akko took a deep breath and let her worries wash away. Whatever happened after this moment, it would be okay. Diana was a comprehensive, gentle and kind girl - those were some of the many qualities that drew the Japanese witch in, that wrapped the tendrils of affection around her heart until she fell in love. If she didn't return Akko's feelings - and really, why would a girl of her status even want a klutz like her? -, their friendship would still perdure.  

"The truth, well, the truth is…" Her cheeks flushed and her confidence waned a bit. But no, not this time. Gulping the fear in her throat down, Akko pushed forward. "The truth, Diana, is that I didn't tell you exactly because the person I like is-"

The confession was cut short by a familiar metallic clang.

A tea tray had been flung towards the nape of Diana's neck, but the blonde witch's trained reflexes dodged it with a quick shield spell. With a flourish, she raised from her chair and turned towards the cowardly assailant. Seeing them made her offensive stance drop. " _Barbara_? What, by the Nines, do you think you are doing?!" She gasped as a pair of ropes that had been silently sliding on the floor sprung up, wrapping and tightening around her wrists. Her wand fell with a clink.

The ends of the ropes coiled around the arms of her chair and pulled her roughly, forcing her to sit down. The perpetrator of that spell showed herself around the corner, smirking coyly.

"God, what's with you two and trays?!" Exclaimed Akko, none too pleased at crossing paths with the dastardly duo again. Especially since it destroyed the mood. There goes her only chance at confessing to Diana, now bound and struggling like a war prisoner.

The two of them sported some bruises, presumably from a fight that had gone down after she escaped. "Well, Barbs, it seems we've finally found our little Akko." Hannah leaned against her partner in crime. 

"So it would seem, dear Hannah!" Barbara nuzzled her companion, a sickeningly sweet sight. "Who'd guess she'd be in our dorm, of all places, waiting for us?! We knew you loved us back, honey."

Though it was a futile exercise, Akko checked their eyes. Yep, still pink. "I don't get it, it was every girl for herself back at the cafeteria. How come you two are still working together under the effect of the potion?"

The girls giggled like the feisty schoolgirls they were. It was Barbara who responded. "Come on, Akko, we're inseparable in everything!" She placed a gentle kiss on her partner's lips, eliciting surprised reactions from their captives. "No matter where we go or what we do, it'll be together." Her hand cupped Hannah's cheek lovingly. "Always."

"Always." The two resumed nuzzling, and Akko's face contorted in disbelief.

Diana's struggle against the ropes had paused. "Wait, you two are in a relationship? When did this happen?"

Hannah waved her hand dismissively. "A relationship? Oh, I don't know for sure, labels are soooo drab. We just enjoy each other." She raised her wand, a spell at ready. "What's mine is hers…"

"…and what's hers is mine~!" sing-songed the black-haired Brit, raising her wand in tandem, their motions mirrored as though the girls were reflections of each other. The disgustingly sweet sight of the couple and sort of couple reveal had drawn Akko's attention in, making her remiss in noticing the ropes that wrapped around her own wrists. The brunette screamed and tugged at the ropes, trying to plant her shoes on the squeaky-clean floor, but to no avail. 

"Akko!" Diana screamed, skin chaffing at the effort she was making to escape. As good a spell-caster and broom-rider that she may be, the Cavendish lacked the raw physical strength to break the ropes, similarly to when her aunt had trapped her before. Kicking and screaming, Akko was yanked and constrained to the mattress of Diana's bed in a sitting position against the bedpost. The red-haired girl took both her and Diana's wands and placed them on a shelf, far away from reach. "Don't you dare lay a finger on her!" the blonde hissed.

"W-what are you going to do to me?" Completely out of energy from all the physical exertion, performed on an empty stomach, Akko limped in defeat. Even if she weren't bound, she had no energy to escape or overpower the two. "Please don't hurt me…"

The duo gasped and exchanged terrified looks, aghast at the suggestion. "Hurt you? Akko, we would never…!" Barbara choked on her words, tearing up.

Hannah rubbed circles in her partner's back, calming the girl despite looking hurt herself. "We understand why you'd think that, Akko. We were so, so mean to you before, weren't we?"

Akko nodded with an annoyed look, memories of the endless teasing they'd put her under flashing through her mind. "You weren't the peachiest when it came to me, y'know."

The auburn-haired aristocrat nodded with remorseful eyes. "Well, that's all changed. We've seen not just how wonderful you are, but how bitter we were. Right, Barbs?" Wiping a tear, the girl besides her nodded. "But that won't erase all the terrible things we did. That's why we'll make it up to you!"

"Y-yeah!" Barbara regained her composure, lifting her right foot in what Akko considered a very moe pose. Barbara leaned in and tenderly ran a hand down Akko's cheek, eliciting a shiver and an unwarranted noise. "You look so tired and weary, cutie."

Hannah disappeared around the corner before returning with a trolley upon which were assorted sweets and drinks of choice. Discomfort momentarily thrown to oblivion, Akko let her mouth fill with water at the heavenly sight.

From her chair-prison, Diana tutted. "Did you steal those supplies from the kitchens? What kind of delinquency is this, Parker, England?!"

"Which is, of course," the girl in the ponytail continued from where her companion left off, ignoring Diana, "why we are providing some very special treatment. Do you remember the day you had to work as a maid for our room, Akko?" The girl's eyes were the size of plates as she stared at a particularly gorgeous tart dripping with cream. She nodded absentmindedly in response.

"Good. We believe you deserve your own maid service like that, mistress." With a flick of her hand, she chanted " _Metamorphie Vestesse!_ " and two beams of green energy swirled around her head and then Barbara's. With a 'poof!', both were covered in a cloud of yellow smoke, which left Diana and Akko coughing. 

Once the smoke cleared, they were able to see that the pair's clothes had changed.

Diana stood upright (well, as much as she could) and glowered deeply, barely believing her eyes. " _What sort of indecent garments are those_?! Do you ladies have no sh _mpfhngh_!" The tied-up blonde's tirade was cut short by a magical gag being conjured around her mouth. Akko didn't need a gag, meanwhile - her mind was too broken at this point for her to create real words. She opted for squeaking defenselessly instead.

The school uniforms were gone. In their places, the girls had black maid dresses - rather skimpy ones. They were strapless, sporting a sweetheart neckline that showed off the top of their budding cleavage. The skirts ended up way above the middle of their thighs and were decorated with white lace at the hem. Tight fishnet stockings hugged their legs and ended up on the middle of their thighs, held by garter-belts. Both of their hairdos were neatly done up in ponytails with white bows. And with an elegant posture, no doubt acquired from their days as daughters of prestigious families, they stood delicately on black, high-heeled stilettos. 

Diana rattled her chair in vain while the duo approached Akko from each side with suggestive eyes. The brunette's muscles tensed up and sweat rolled down the sides of her face, now devoid of blood, as each of her "personal maids" lifted a hand and approached her poor, poor pure virgin body. The tips of their fingers bristled the curves of her collarbone over her shirt and nestled around her shoulders for a couple moments, before pushing the tips of their fingers into her skin at the same time.

And for the first time today, as much as she dreaded to admit it, Akko felt _bliss_.

Wrong as it may be, for this moment alone, the Japanese girl couldn't give less of a heck. She had underestimated Hannah and Barbara's talents - the girls' hands were magical as they worked out the knots in her tensed muscles.

"Oh, look at our poor little mistress, Barbs. She's been through so much today, hasn't she?" 

"She deserves a moment to relax and enjoy being pampered like a queen." 

Akko sighed in relief. Whatever it was she had been expecting from the girls was far more levels of hell worse than this. She noticed the blonde captive muffling angrily, her face… red? Was Diana _blushing_?

Never stopping her massaging of Akko's left shoulder, which perfectly synchronized with Barbara's, Hannah smirked coyly and covered her mouth with her free hand in mock scandal. "Oh my, Diana. Who'd guess the future head of the Cavendish family and the top student of our academy was a _voyeur_?" The rattle of the chair stopped, along with Diana's struggle, while she paused to register the sentence. Then her pupils shrunk and she gasped loudly, proceeding to immediately shriek muffled obscenities that would probably never leave her trained aristocrat mouth ever again. Though Akko didn't give it as much attention through the wave of pleasure washing over her tired body, her subconscious gladly registered this once-in-a-lifetime moment of Diana Cavendish blushing and flustered for future inspection.

"Oh, don't take us wrong, Diana!" Barbara smiled sweetly at her socially esteemed roommate. "We don't kink-shame! It's okay. It must be pretty…" she bit her lip, eyes rolling up as her imagination went to ride off somewhere lewd, " _tantalizing_ to watch a beautiful girl being coddled by others. The rush, the danger, the jealousy…" She sighed dreamily. Diana blushed deeply and her fury burned brighter.

Akko was by now coming down from her reverie. She didn't know what fancy words like 'voyeur' and 'tantalizing' meant, but she was starting to get an idea and wasn't very fond of it. Perhaps she could get out of this by talking, since brute force probably wasn't going to cut it. "Look, girls, since you want to please me so much, you could-" she was shushed by a finger being placed on her lips. 

"No talking, mistress, just relaxing." The massage stopped - somewhere, deep down, Akko was sad about that - and Barbara left her side to bring the dessert trolley by the bed. Daintily, she cut a slice of the tart Akko had been eyeing previously and placed it on a porcelain plate. She handed Hannah a fork and held the plate a few inches from the Japanese witch's face. The loud rumble that filled the room, originating from Akko's stomach, spoke far more than words could have.

"We know how much of a sweet tooth you have, so we made sure to pick only the sweetest treats for you!" Barbara chimed.

"For the sweetest girl in Luna Nova, of course." 

Akko's mouth, which had been gaping and watering, snapped shut. "No no no, I'm not going to let myself be bribed by mere food! Atsuko Kagari is stronger than her stomach!" She turned her head to the side, grouchy.

The black-haired girl giggled. "Oh, come on now, just a bite. You know you want iiiit~" The brunette steeled herself, closing her eyes to resist temptation. 

"We even added some slices of pickled plums because we knew you'd like it!" exclaimed Hannah proudly. That got the victim of the two to open an eye. Yep. They weren't lying.

"…Fine." Akko huffed. "Just a bite."

The girls giggled. Barbara tasked herself with holding the dessert while Hannah picked up a forkful of the tart and held it by the girls' lips. Akko gazed at Diana, who shot her an incredulous look that said ' _please tell me you're not_ '. Her response in this curious wordless conversation was ' _I'm sorry, but, like,_ tart _!_ ' Her lips parted and, like a castaway who had spent days without food, she hungrily munched down on the piece of cutlery, letting the confection roll in her tongue, bittersweet, before gulping it down.

It was so good. Self-restraint be damned to the deepest pits of the Earth. She couldn't resist. "More, please!" Akko cried, desperate. She was too hungry to care. Hannah and Barbara exchanged a victorious look and fed her more forkfuls, each one being received with noises of pleasure. This went on for a while as Akko happily chomped down on tarts and cake and so on, until Hannah's fork hit Akko's cheek by accident, leaving vanilla cream on her skin.

"Hey, my mouth's over here!" Diana rolled her eyes in the background.

"Oh no, I'm so, so sorry my mistress!" The girl hurriedly looked around for a handkerchief. But Barbara, having an idea, smiled. 

She picked up another fork and prepared to serve Akko another forkful, but _just so happened_ to poke it against her other cheek. "By the Nines, I did it too!" Hannah turned to look. "It seems that we might need to clean this cheek as well, Han-Han." Realization dawned upon the auburn-haired maid's eyes.

"Why, yes, Barbs doll." Both started to approach their prey, inclining and leaving their mouths resting close to the stains. "Like the dutiful maids we are." Akko could feel Hannah's breath dancing on her complexion. 

Her eyes darted between them. What were they talking about? She looked at Diana for answers. The girl was blushing even more, growling what she barely made out as ' _don't you dare!_ '.

Then her cheeks felt moist. Her heart stopped in its tracks.

Very slowly, dreading what she'd see, she turned her eyes to the left. Barbara's tongue was very, _very_ slowly licking her cheek clean. It was pointless to wonder if Hannah was doing the same.

Barbara moaned. "My… I would say it's a surprise, but it really isn't. She's even sweeter than a tart." Hannah nodded. Barbara cupped Akko's chin and leaned in uncomfortably close to her face, much like Lotte had done in class. Her other hand undid the white bow holding her ponytail, hair falling by the sides of her head. With the outfit she sported and the look in her eyes, the girl was downright lascivious.

Akko yelped when she felt touch in a place she shouldn't have felt at all. Hannah had rested a hand on her breasts. By now, the face of Shiny Chariot's spiritual successor was matching her crimson eyes.

A set of fingers delicately touched the skin of her cheek. "You are so warm, mistress Akko," drawled Hannah, voice sultry. "How about we take care of that need as well~?" The hand that rested on her cleavage crawled up to tug at her tie, easily undoing the knot. Barbara fiddled with the collar of Akko's shirt before rummaging down to her vest and undoing the first button.

"Don't worry," Barbara whispered in Akko's ear.

"Just relax and let us work. We'll make you feel absolutely amazing," Hannah finished, biting on the lobe of Akko's other ear and pulling on it lightly.

As if almost losing her first kiss wasn't enough, was she going to lose the sanctity of her nude body now too? Or worse?!

The display scratched to a halt. All of the involved turned to see the source of a loud noise of something breaking.

Diana had thrown herself at the floor on top of her right arm, breaking the chair and setting her free. She ripped the gag with a furious howl. Demonstrating agility similar to that she displayed during broom riding class, she rolled on the floor and then sidestepped while crouched to avoid the stunning spells the maid duo had fired at her. She propped herself up on a bookshelf with difficulty, the pain in her arm restricting her movements.

Another spell was deflected by using a book as a shield. However, Akko knew that the next spell Barbara was casting would probably hit the defenseless prodigy. And so, she decided to lend some aid with her best asset - her thick skull. She headbutted Barbara's side with a scream of war, causing the Brit to miss. That was enough time for Diana to find her wand and shout the incantations for her own set of stun spells. Barbara, distracted, was stunned by a shot and fell to the floor with a thud. Hannah, however, dodged and fired again. The tide was turning to the auburn-haired witch's side, since she was far more nimble than her currently hurt roommate, impaired both in dodging and casting skills.

"Hannah, stop this madness!" Diana tried bargaining.

"As if! I'm tired of how you always get everything handed on a silver platter to you, you arrogant prick!" Hannah gritted her teeth. Akko gasped at the insult.

Diana scoffed and dug her fingers on the handle of her wand, knuckles whitening. "I may be the descendant of a prestigious family, that much is true. But my reputation as a capable witch is upheld by years of arduous training, not because of some inherited title!" Energy crackled at the tip of her wand like electricity. "Not only that, I pride myself in following the motto of my family: affection. I seek to provide the best for everyone with my actions, for I'd rather let them speak for me than pretentious, empty words. Even if I have stumbled on my path and acted needlessly arrogant in the past," her eyes sought Akko regretfully for a brief moment, "the fact remains I will fight so no harm comes to those I love! It is clear to me you have overstepped several boundaries with Akko today. And it just so happens, Hannah, that Akko," she stepped forward menacingly - intimidating Hannah to take a step back -, looking menacing as the bright emerald magic from her wand deepened the shadows of her scowl, "is someone I love."

Shouting the incantation, Diana discharged the magic on Hannah - the spell covered a far larger area than the previous ones, barely missing the restrained Akko on the bed -, promptly knocking her out cold. Diana's posture sagged and her knees wobbled, the spell having taken a decent amount of her energy. Her hand clutched her left temple, the grimace in her face indicating a growing headache. Nonetheless, she walked over to Akko's bed and started undoing the knots on her ropes.

"Diana…" Akko breathed. As soon as she was free, she hugged the blonde as if she intended for the girl to never leave the nest of her arms. Tears were welling at the brunette's eyes. "I-I'm so sorry… I didn't want you to be hurt because of me…" Her hands clenched the girl's vest.

The Cavendish smiled, and gently broke the hug to sit on top of the bed to take a breather. Akko sat by her side, concerned. Sensing this, the blonde sighed. "Don't worry, Akko. Neither of us wished for this to happen." She turned to hold Akko's hands, inspecting her wrists. The act made the recent bondage victim blush. "Your wrists are chaffed. Let me fix this." A spell was recited, and the hurt skin healed in a matter of seconds. Akko bit her lower lip, her gaze finding the horizon outside the window.

"Hannah was wrong." Akko turned to face her, determinate. "You're not an arrogant prick. I mean, you weren't that nice to me when I arrived but I don't care! That's in the past!" Diana's usual rigid posture failed her a bit. The power behind the girl's words, the raw emotion that broke out like a tsunami over the island of her soul, always touched something there previously thought inaccessible by the heiress. "Even after you were trapped and hurt, you're still here, worried for me instead of yourself." Akko held Diana's hands, her fingers intertwining and clenching their conjoined digits together. "And I'll fight anyone who's stupid enough to say otherwise!" 

Blue trembled before the passion of crimson. Diana, beside herself, smiled. "Thank you, Akko. That was very sweet of you, if not a bit over-the-top." The girls shared a silent but pleasant moment, smiling warmly at each other. Akko almost considered going back to where she let off with her confession, but the time was hardly appropriate with two fainted girls on the floor.

"Well, we need to go now, I believe," Diana broke the silence. "I already have the information on the transmutation circle. We must meet up with your roommates and proceed with the plan. Hm…" She gazed at her knocked out friends. "What shall we do about Hannah and Barbara?"

"Oh, I have an idea! Help me bring them to bed." They carried the pair to bed, having a very hard time not blushing considering the revealing outfits they wore. Both stepped a few feet away from the bed. "Alright, let's try this.  _Juras Haras Haras_!" The ropes that previously held the brunette and the blonde danced in the air, purple smoke raising from their length. They formed a spherical barrier around the bed.

Diana nodded proudly. "Good thinking, Akko. Although, I believe this spell hasn't been covered in class. Where did you learn it?"

The image of a giant cockatrice chasing her flashed through Akko's mind and she visibly shivered. "Memories of the war. I'd rather not talk about them." 

"Memories of the…?" Her companion shook her head and retrieved her notebook, storing it inside a blue bag she hung over her shoulder. "Let's leave. I've had enough of this place for now and I'd rather not dwell on the sad state of disarray of my living quarters."

"Amen to that, sister." Akko barely knew how to process what had just happened. She decided to just push the events down to psychologically deal with everything this bizarre day threw at her later.

It felt natural by now when Diana held her hand. The two girls, looking rather scruffy and worn-out, shared smiles and walked out of the dorm, close to each other. 

After a couple of minutes without conversation, Diana spoke. "I will not question the fact you seemed to be enjoying yourself to some extent back there, even if it piques my curiosity." 

Akko groaned. "Hey, I was tired and hungry! Anyone would do the same, come on! Besides, _you_ were the one blushing and being all stuffy when they touched me."

"A-are you implying something, Ms. Kagari? I'll have you know I was simply defending your honor!" Diana's face flushed red once more, something she reasoned as the stress of the day messing with her heart rate. 

Feeling bold, Akko smirked. "Oh yeah? Betcha were jealous. Did you want to spoon-feed me cake too? I'm not gonna complain if you do."

"Honestly…" Diana pinched the bridge of her nose, partially so she could hide her blush.

Back to the Red Team dorm they headed, bickering and making small talk as they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it.  
> I hope to get the next chapter out by the 24th. Comments appreciated 'n' all!  
> (Sorry for not responding to previous ones, I'm a ball of awkward sdfsfgdfsdfg)


	4. Words Are Very Unnecessary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to preface this chapter with a shout-out to my cute good friend [Atsuko_Cavendish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atsuko_Cavendish), who's responsible for giving me the idea for this fic as well as helping me work some of its kinks out. Go check out her fic "Unexpected Friendship" if you haven't yet~!
> 
> I would like to also thank all the (surprisingly, many) amazing people who've kudo'd this fic or left comments. I'm ecstatic about getting such positive feedback on my first story.
> 
> Enjoy the new chapter!

Draped in comfortable silence, Akko and Diana reached the Red Team dorm, still the same war-torn mess. They took this moment to stand by the archway, Akko propping herself up against the wood frame, and breathe in deeply. The episode with the impromptu maids had stressed both physically and psychologically. Lotte and Sucy had not yet come back to the dorm, their point of rendezvous, so all the two girls could do for now was wait.

"Excuse me, Diana, I really need the comfort of bed-kun right now."

The brunette kicked her shoes away and plopped face-down on the sheets with a thump, groaning as if she'd run a marathon. Perhaps that'd have been better than being the special guest of the Afternoon Kinky Show™. As for the blonde, she rested the notebook she'd been carrying on the desk by the window and daintily sat on the edge of Akko's bed, crossing her legs. The Japanese witch, stealing a glance, could only wonder how the heiress managed to keep up her composure even now.

' _Oh well, that's her problem._ ' Akko wiggled her toes inside her knee-highs, enjoying the snugly feel of her blanket beneath her and the way the mattress hugged her shape like a mother hugging their child. "Aaah, just like home~" She grabbed the ends of the blanket and wrapped herself, sighing contentedly and taking solace in this fluffy oasis away from the hurricane of lewd raging outside. The ordeal, in fact, was long gone from her thoughts and replaced with a happy, lazy daze. Diana couldn't help but let the corners of her lips move up a bit at the sight, watching the brunette repose. 

"Feeling comfortable, I presume?"

Realizing the position she was in, rolling around inside a blanket like a kid in front of her mature and refined crush, the brunette blushed and sat up straight, propping herself with a hand on her Shiny Chariot poster and looking anywhere that left those oh-so-beautiful but also oh-so-teasing pools of blue out of her field of vision. "O-oh, I wasn't snuggling or anything if that's what you're thinking. That was just, y'know…"

Akko couldn't come up with a decent excuse. Diana's smirk felt hot on her back - that, or she was just blushing a lot. Maybe both.

"…Shush." With a prideful 'hmpf!', she lost herself against in the sea of soft material, deciding not to care what the aristocrat thought of her silliness.

Diana giggled - not in derision, as Akko dreadfully expected somewhere in her soul, but lightheartedly. "I see nothing wrong with it. I will admit I might have not thought the same months ago, but now…" With a sigh, the blonde's head dipped ever so slightly, a bare inch or two from her calculated facade, enough to let her long blonde locks hide her eyes and sad smile. "Seeing you, well, you see…" The usually eloquent Brit thought on how to better phrase what she felt.

"Being in the presence of your carefree and infantile joy, innocent as that of a child, makes me wish I hadn't grown up so fast. I might say I am jealous, perhaps," the last sentence just above a whisper, but still audible. The Japanese witch's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the direct and open confession the blonde had made. She mulled over it for a few moments, both to formulate a response and to appreciate the honesty and openness that had grown between them since their great adventure together.

Akko poked the inside of a cheek with her tongue, thinking of how to approach the girl in a way that wasn't dismissive or cold, but also not overbearing. Diana was a castle, with a moat of insecurity and walls of repression, after all.

She sat up on the bed, placing her back against the wall, still a blanket burrito. She unfurled the fabric to her right, holding it in her hand, leaving the blanket covering only her left shoulder and back. Allowing her eyes to bashfully meet the blonde's, Akko's other hand patted the freed spot on the mattress, a wordless invitation. 

The Cavendish heiress seemed confused at the motion, until she realized the girl's intention and pink dusted her pearl-white skin. A spark of a wish seemed to dance in her irises before being dismissed reluctantly. "Now, Akko, cuddling under a blanket like a child seems unbecoming of me. Not that I think less of you for doing it, of course." She cleaned her throat, trying to push away the unintended implication. "What I'm trying to say is, this is not the kind of attitude expected from the future head of the Cavendish family, to indulge in silly wishes and carefree attitudes, even privately. Surely you understand."

The brunette besides her blew a raspberry. "I understand that you're being a dork! Everyone deserves to let their inner child out every now and then." Though Akko admitted internally that she did that more often than not. "When's the last time you've allowed yourself to just relax and let go? To just have some fun, huh, Di?"

Diana, uncharacteristically, fiddled her fingers nervously, opening and closing her mouth a few times without delivering a clear answer. Some moments having passed until she finally replied. "I believe I had an afternoon of reading non-obligatory complementary material on the applications of runes on aged metals three weeks ago, since my schedule was surprisingly clear." The answer seemed fitting enough for the blonde's standards, but her brunette companion's facepalm indicated she wasn't buying it.

"Gosh, you sound like a robot. Beep-boop, I'm a really big nerd." Akko's hand dashed out and took a hold of Diana's soft fingers, the latter gasping and sputtering in surprise. The brunette pulled her friend to her side with vigor, but also gentleness. Content in seeing the prodigious student wasn't showing any rejection to the idea, Akko bent over the girl's lap - trying not to think too hard about how close they were - to grab the other edge of the blanket to cover the two. "There!" Akko closed her eyes victoriously and sighed, melting into the blanket.

Diana, for her part, was blushing very hard. This was uncharted territory. She felt like she should admonish the klutz beside her for being so brash, but in the end, no protest left her throat, only half-formed stutters conveying no concise thought. Once more, Akko obliterated her defenses without a single care. No one, since her late mom, had ever been allowed this much foray into her personal space, both physically and emotionally.

And once more, Diana was unable to identify this feeling in her stomach, like a cold chill that was also paradoxically warm, flowing through her insides. 

Akko giggled, breaking her train of thought. "It's cozy, ain't it?"

Sighing, the blonde decided to push the mess of emotions aside and focus on the now. She shuffled inside the blanket, finding a more appropriate posture, and found that this position was surprisingly very comfortable. She'd never stopped to simply lay down and appreciate her bed in these last years of carefully timed schedules, which included precise and unchanging times for sleeping and waking up, no room left for naps or anything of the sort. She couldn't force herself to waste such precious study time on such trivial comforts.

"It's more than I was expecting, yes," Diana conceded. The word 'protected' popped in her mind, unexpected, as an adjective for how she felt.

"Hah, knew you'd like it. I know the good stuff, girl." 

After that, both sat in comfortable silence, minds wandering to places of contentment. Akko felt her anxiety over the day's events melt away, after all, if she didn't recharge her batteries, she'd just end up overwhelmed. As for Diana, she, involuntarily, found herself going back to the days where she'd lay on her mother's lap to listen to a story about her ancestors and their kindness. She didn't have a reputation to uphold back then. Didn't have an image as the future head of her house to polish and shine, or the pressure of being the highest-achieving student of her academy, nor the need to keep all of her peers - even the closest ones - within a comfortable distance of her heart by walls of coldness.

She could just be herself in those days.

Her body was inevitably relaxing, muscles she didn't even know were tensed being let loose.

It was here that she realized that Akko had encouraged her to be herself again, following long years of self-imposed solitude. It was the girl who instilled laughs she thought forever buried, a carefree spirit until then missing. Not that Diana was ever going to be as brash and loud as the witch or that girl O'Neill were, but she could no longer deny how much had been pushed down for no good reason. The little Cavendish girl that loved Shiny Chariot and wanted to make everyone happy with magic didn't have to be just a distant memory.

All because of Akko, that impertinent but loving, silly but mirthful, daring but beautiful friend. The girl who had so much affection for those around her, unknowingly carrying out the motto of the Cavendish family in her actions.

Words she'd spoken not long ago rung in her mind, the build-up to a long due epiphany.

_'Even if I have stumbled on my path and acted needlessly arrogant in the past, the fact remains I will fight so no harm comes to those I love!'_

"U-uh, Di…"

Diana smiled, a rare smile, that reached her ears and cleansed the bitterness of her heart. It took a while, but she was starting to realize what that now familiar flutter inside of her really meant. 

 _'And it just so happens, Hannah…'_  

"Di."

And she didn't need to fight it, didn't need to lock herself from comprehending how her heart felt. She'd just take a page out of Akko's bizarre book of how to live one's life and allow herself to feel without fear. Her mind could take care of whether or not she'd actually act upon that later.

After all, she understood now.

_'That Akko is someone I love.'_

"Dianaaaaaa!" an accented voice cried out to her ears. Somewhat lazily, Diana let her eyes wander up, catching a glimpse of those crimson eyes she was starting to regard in a different light. 

"Hmm?" the blonde's calming voice was melodic.

"Y-you're laying _on my shouldeeer…_!" To say this phrase was spoken wouldn't be a good assessment, squeaking being a better fit.

The blonde, now paying attention to her surroundings, could verify the truth of the fact. Maybe if she were in a different state of mind she'd have panicked, shot out of the compromising position and tried to excuse herself like in a romantic comedy. But right now? She couldn't care much for those old-lived tropes.

"Now, is that so bad, Akko? You said yourself I should relax, lest memory fails me, and I find the warmth and comfort of a good friend helpful with that task," she asked calmly. Her voice remained level as she spoke, completely in betrayal of the emotions dancing in her chest. "Unless it makes you uncomfortable?"

Akko's jaw dropped. She expected everything but for the blonde to challenge her to accept the display of affection like that. "W-well, I, uhm…"

' _I've wanted you to be close like this for so long and your hair smells like a garden of flowers and I want to kiss your neck so hard,_ ' was the brunette's immediate passion-fueled thought.

"I-I would be glad to help with that, _frieeeend_!" Akko's attempt at pushing her cocktail mix of nervousness, longing and embarrassment down was a sad sight to see and a disgrace to the field of acting arts - but if it was noticed by the blonde, it did not elicit any visible reaction.

If the brunette could see Diana's reaction, she'd be privy to a satisfied smirk. The Brit mentally patted herself for defusing the protests of the girl she was now cozily lying on, years of dealing with snotty high-class folks having taught her how to convincingly get to the point she wanted in a conversation. No complains were produced when Akko's tensed muscles started to relax and the trouble-maker rested her head on top of the aristocrat's.

No words were needed right now.

All Diana secretly wanted and needed was in her arms now. 

 

* * *

 

Long eyelashes fluttered, indistinct and blurry sights coming slowly into focus as the lids they belonged to blinked a few times. The mid-afternoon sun shone brightly through the curtains, and judging by its position, Diana estimated her nap had lasted somewhere around fifteen minutes. Thankfully not much time wasted.

Well, that was a very poor choice of words actually. Basking in the warmth of Japanese girl, currently snoring above her, was a soothing sensation she found little analogy to in her memory. It'd be a crime to call this a waste of time, undoubtedly one she couldn't adhere by.

At some point during their shared slumber, one of her hands had slipped around the brunette's waist and intertwined with her callous but soft palm, Diana hugging her close against her waist as though she were a stuffed animal. The heiress was reminded of the teddy bear back at her estate, one of the last remnants of a happy childhood that was cut tragically short. She wished this moment could last forever, that's how nice it was to be here, silently cuddling her newly found crush.

Unfortunately, the time called for action. Careful to not elbow her companion, Diana raised her upper body and leaned against the wall. She drowsily took in the environment, noticing the books sprawled on the floor, an upturned bed, a pair of long pink locks, the clear sky outside-

Wait.

"And here I thought our plan had failed," giggled a raspy voice. Sucy's hand was in front of her mouth as if to stifle a giggle, her eye delighting at the sight of Diana Cavendish, proud descendant of one of the Nine Olde Witches, lovingly cuddling her roommate. It took quite a bit of restraint for the blonde not to jump in surprise or something similar - waking Akko up would only make this situation far more awkward. Disentangling her hand from the girl's and crossing her arms, Diana adjusted her disheveled bed hair behind her shoulders and unflinchingly met the teasing red eye that stared from across the room with her own pair of azure irises.

"Your plan? I know not what you speak of, Ms. Manbavaran." Diana didn't indulge in the ambiguous meaning of the pale witch's words, not wanting to play what she believed to be one of her teasing games.

"In any case, I assure you this is not what you might be thinking of." Diana couldn't even notice she had started rambling, Sucy not making any effort to stop her. "Akko and I were merely in need of relaxation and comfort, you see, and we concluded that a good method to achieve these intended results was… platonic… cuddling." She bit her tongue at the last word, annoyed at herself for not finding a less compromising word to describe what the two had been doing.

Sucy's sharp teeth made her seem like a hungry shark, smelling the blood of vulnerability. "Oh, and what could I be thinking of, Princess? That you and that useless half-fringed butt are, how would someone like you say it…" In a rare display, the Filipino straightened her back, flipping her right lock of hair behind her shoulder, as she imitated the object of her ridicule. "'Pushing our relationship beyond acceptable platonic norms established in our society'?" The combination of air quotes and a forced British accent made Diana want to grit her teeth hard enough to shatter them. However, she took a deep breath and didn't allow her serenity to falter. Sucy wouldn't get a rise out of her so easily.

"Why, yes, you are quite right. That is an assumption that could be made and it would be a sorely incorrect one." The blonde carefully parted from Akko's side, the girl now babbling about whatever she was dreaming of (it apparently involving a magic dolphin), and stood up in the middle of the room, working out the wrinkles the rest had given her uniform.

Diana closed her eyes and waited for a response from the girl with the mauve hair, but the eventual monotone retort she expected never arrived. Opening her eyes, the Cavendish saw that Sucy's eyebrows, one raised and the other furrowed, denounced she wasn't convinced.

"Besides," Diana started, picking up from her last sentence. "Let's say, hypothetically, that I were to be infatuated in a more-than-platonic manner with Ms. Kagari, which I am not." She had realized what she felt for the brunette less than an hour ago and wasn't allowed the time to work through how these feelings affected her. The idea of honestly speaking about them to anyone right now, let alone the snarky potion-maker, was off bounds.

"As we both know, Akko asked you to brew her that potion for the purpose of attracting someone's attention and, from what I could gather while we were procuring information, it was in an attempt to court them. Knowing this fact, I could not possibly in good conscience ever proclaim these feelings I have, after all I would not want to be the one to interfere in or cause confusion in her budding relationship with the one who has already grasped her heart."

A beat.

"Hypothetically. As stated."

" ** _HOW CAN YOU TWO BE SO USELESS?!_** " Sucy shouted - miraculously not awakening the third girl in the dormitory - and arched her head backwards.  Her hands placed themselves on top of her eyes, fingers dragging down her colorless cheeks in exasperation. Such stupidity was to be expected from the Japanese witch and her pea-sized brain, but to have it mirrored by the supposedly brightest student in Luna Nova was beyond unbelievable to the Filipino.

Diana recoiled in disgust. "Useless? I'll have you know that she was the one responsible for reviving the tree of Yggdrasil and bringing forth a new era of magic, and you should demonstrate more respect to her for her achievements!" she replied, donning her trademarked holier-than-thou icy glare.

"That's not what I mean by usel… _AARGH_!" Sucy's frustrated scowl buried itself in her palms. She had to take a large, deep breath to calm herself, letting her mind anchor itself back to its usual droning state. ' _Think about mushrooms. A large field of them, full of pores floating in the air._ '

With her meditation done, the Filipino lifted her now deadpan face, single eye traversing between the blonde and the brunette. One day, hopefully.

And at least, until then, she had just found a new target to tease. Her thin line of a mouth flashed a ghost of a smirk when she spoke, a hint of diabolical intent lacing her words.

"Well, hypothetically speaking then, Diana. Maybe you shouldn't be throwing your hypothetical affection for our favorite idiot under the truck yet. What if you end up regretting it, hmm?" Sucy knew she was poking at the weak spots of the girl's exterior, her showing it or not. "How would you handle being in the same school as her, seeing her every day with some random girl, thinking 'oh Nines, what could have been?'" Hearing Sucy doing an impression of such a dramatic sentence was rather comical when her deadpan voice allowed no inflections.

Diana couldn't deny she had at point. To not act on her feelings soon would mean to lose any chance she could have of ever making Akko knew how she felt, regardless of reciprocation existing. However, her heart was weighed down by uncertainty. "Perhaps I'd best simply leave this alone and allow ourselves to return to normalcy, as soon as this strange catastrophe has been resolved," she concluded fatalistically. Just because she'd accepted her romantic feelings for the brunette didn't mean she would ever profess them.

"Oh, I see." Sucy shrugged with a dismissive tone. "Expectations and reality tend to be so different in the end, huh."

"What are you talking about?"

The pale witch giggled. "Diana Cavendish, the greatest student of Luna Nova, esteemed heiress, queen bee. That has always been your reputation, of the perfect girl to whom no problem was too much, for she was _sooo_ smart and centered." Sitting on the chair by the desk, Sucy fiddled inside a jar filled with mushrooms until she found the one she wanted, blue and dotted with small teal spots. It had a beauty and elegance to it, the light of the sun outside providing it a glossy reflection. "But little did I know that was all a lie."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "I fear I do not follow."

"Whenever things get too hard for your pretty little emotions, you run away and hide behind your own image and reputation, tail between your legs." Her free hand rummaged through a drawer until it found a sharp scalpel, which was pointed at the heiress. "Such as when you ran off to your doll house because Akko intimidated you." The girl in the blonde and teal locks twitched nervously - it was a slight movement, but Sucy was a perceptive witch. "And now, when you can't deal with a simple high school crush, you want to do it again."

The heiress blushed, though it was the result of indignation unlike her latest blood rushes of schoolgirl embarrassment. "I'm not a coward, Sucy," Diana stated with a coldness in her voice she only reserved for the likes of her aunt. 

"Yes, Diana, you are a coward who's afraid of herself. I don't know what's going on with your life, but I know someone who's repressing emotions when I see them," the alchemist spoke, matter-of-factly, not intimated by Diana in the slightest. "And one of the reasons you like Akko is because she is someone who not only sees those things you're pushing down, but also forces herself inside your life and brings them out, dirty or scary as they may be. She's not afraid to make you confront and accept yourself." Sucy wasn't entirely sure if this therapy session was just teasing anymore or genuine interest in helping the budding couple. The lines were blurry.

"You need to stop acting like a Jenga tower, Princess. All of what you've built for yourself, your perfect image, is a house of cards waiting to be toppled by an unexpected breeze. If you allow yourself to break down and hide again because you can't face the fact you love Akko," Sucy suddenly nipped the head of the beautiful mushroom from the stem, both parts wilting and becoming unsighlty, "you might never stop hiding."

The blonde could find no retort, no lie to cover herself in. Sucy saw right through her as though she were made of glass. The Filipino then concluded her speech.

"Hypothetically, of course."

No more words were spoken between them afterwards. Enough had been said.

 

* * *

  

Akko awoke with a loud yawn, joints popping as her arms stretched out. "Heck yeah, that's what the doctor prescribed me!" Her body felt absolutely refreshed. It hadn't been a long nap, maybe half an hour, but beggars ain't gonna be choosers. The clumsy magician already thanked her stars for the fact no members of the crazy mob had come searching for her yet - which was somewhat strange actually, but she brushed it off.

Recalling the condition upon which she dozed off, pink danced over her cheeks. She hadn't expected such a need for physical affection from her crush when she extended the invitation to share the blanket, but it'd be a cold day in a dragon's chest before she complained about it.

' _Huh, wait, where's Diana?_ '

A quick surveillance of the room revealed the blonde sitting at the edge of her bed, seemingly engrossed in an introduction guide to the study of Central American fungi, no doubt an exemplar from her creepy roommate's collection. She seemed to have woken up before the brunette did and left their embrace.

The slight frown on the girl's brow and the way her eyes seemed to be focusing more on the opposite wall than on the pages indicated to Akko that the Brit had something weighing on her mind, starkly contrasting with her unusually cheery attitude earlier. She hoped it wasn't regret over their intimate moment.

She also noticed Sucy, currently working on a mixture in one of her beakers. Deciding to leave Diana be, Akko shouted a groggy "Yo, Suce, you're here!" to her dorm-mate whose head, clad in protective goggles, didn't shift a single inch away from her crucial work. The other girl on her bed however, who hadn't noticed the brunette jostling awake, jumped ever so slightly in surprise - Akko could feel the shift on the mattress - but said nothing. Her hands that held the book seemed a little more jittery than before.

"If it isn't Sleeping Beauty herself," the Filipino scientist spoke after finishing an important step in preparing her brew. "Had you perhaps forgotten we're in the middle of a crisis? Not exactly the best time for a nap."

Akko responded, tilting her neck to both sides to crack her joints. "Like, not that you're wrong, but honestly, being tied to Diana's bed while being fed sweets was tiring as heck. Who wouldn't want a nap after that?"

The pipette the pale witch held fell with a clatter on the desk. Her neck creaking, she turned to face the two other girls in the room, one of them seeming as though she'd seen a corpse. "What." The dry and deadpan monotony of Sucy's question was so much more palpable than usual that it crossed some sort of event horizon and came back as the Sucy equivalent to a shout of surprise.

"Context, Akko. Context." Diana's face resembled a tomato inside a banana peel as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

The brunette didn't seem to pick up on the double entendre of her own sentence, nose scrunching up at the weird reaction from the two. Diana briefly explained, without all the sordid details, what had transpired after the two teams split up.

"Yuck. I'd say 'kinky' but sex isn't exactly my thing." Sucy dutifully returned to her work, more disgusted than anything by the tale.

"Yeah, that was like, three times worse than going through Finnelan." Akko shivered and rubbed her wrists where she had been restrained. "Though those tarts were pretty good. I wish I had some more sweet cream to stuff my face into, y'know?" Diana facepalmed behind her. 

Akko clasped her hands together, happy. "We got the circle thingy we need, so that's halfway done!" She peeked over Sucy's shoulder, taking in the fuchsia liquid boiling inside the glass receptacle. "So, is that the antidote you're working on?" Wordlessly, Sucy's head dipped up and down. "Yay! Then that means we have everything we need to reverse the spell!" Then it struck her that one member of their squad was missing.

"Omigosh, Lotte. Where's Lotte?!" Akko's eyes widened. "Did we lose her to the mob? Oh, poor Lotte! You were too pure for this world." The brunette slumped on the floor, eyes watery as she prepared a prayer.

The vampire-like witch merely rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, Forrest Gump, you'll get to open your shrimp company. She wasn't killed in action or whatever. Lotte's looking for the last ingredient we need right now, since what little I had of it in my personal stash was used up in the first batch."

On cue, a panting girl walked into the room, her orange hair frazzled and her spectacles sliding down the bridge of her nose, glistening with sweat. She didn't have the time to acknowledge Diana or Akko as she cried out in despair. "Aah, Sucy, I can't find it anywhere! Not even in Lukić's storage in the alchemy classroom!"

"Oh, fuck." Sucy left her chair and started pacing about. "The potion won't work without it. This is a problem."

Diana closed her book. "What, pray tell, is 'it'?"

The hunching witch didn't stop her somewhat panicked prancing - or slither, rather - to reply. "Meru oak flowers. They're a strong retardant to unicorn magic. However, they're not just rare, but also endemic to Kenya, so we can't just waltz into town to get a pack of them."

Akko tilted her head. "Endemic? Is the flower contagious?"

"Endemic means it only grows on a specific region, you dolt," Sucy retorted, following it with a sigh. "Namely, Kenya. If we cannot find it in the academy, our only option might be to travel there and look."

"How _kenya_ suggest that?" Akko snorted at her own pun, eliciting groans from the other three in the dormitory, then continued, now seriously. "We already talked about this, we don't have time!"

Diana scratched her chin. "You are correct in that we can't afford to do this trip, Akko, but our options are very limited."

The brunette ruffled her own hair, distressed. When it finally seemed things were going to be resolved, they hit a wall. "Blugh, I hate this. If only we weren't on our own. Maybe if we talked to Professor Lukić or Wangari, but I haven't seen the teachers yet and the latter is likely a love zombie too by now."

The lips of the Finnish girl by the archway formed an 'o', a flash of realization crossing her turquoise eyes. She placed a fist on an open palm. "Of course, Wangari is Kenyan! I completely forgot about that!"

"Oh, true, I'd forgotten too," drawled her Filipino roommate. "How did you remember, Akko?"

The brunette smirked, tapping her left temple with a pointer finger. "I always remember important stuff about my friends. Knowing stuff like that helps you relate to them better, you know?" The other girls in the room nodded, having to agree that her dedication to keeping those details to memory was remarkably kind and friendly. Not easy, as well, considering Luna Nova's student body was a mishmash of nationalities.

"Plus I get to give, like, the best birthday gifts~" Akko puffed her chest and dusted it pridefully.

"Like when you tried to get me a mushroom and had you and the entire Green Team hallucinating in the forest?" Sucy teased, leaving Akko bashful. However, the potion-maker did genuinely appreciate the gesture from back then. For as brash and overly tenacious as she could be, Akko was a girl so sweet she'd give you cavities.

Diana pursed her lips and mulled over the new information. "It's not a high probability, but Wangari could have a sample of those flowers or at least knowledge on where to find them without having to travel to another country. How should we proceed?"

"I say we break into the journalist team's dorm and snoop around," the mushroom expert proposed, much to Diana's chagrin.

"That's a horribly unethical thing to do."

Already slithering out of the room, not caring if anyone would follow, Sucy retaliated. "Tough luck, Princess, time to get those manicured nails dirty." The blonde's glare burning on her back only made Sucy smirk.

Diana sighed. "Very well. Though I hate it, desperate times call for desperate measures." Akko's eyes darted away from the blonde, remembering how she'd told herself the same thing to justify creating the potion. Since there wasn't much room for debate that wouldn't be cyclical and unproductive, Akko, Diana and Lotte entered in silent agreement and followed the Filipino, all feeling a knot in their guts at having to violate the privacy of others.

 

* * *

  

It wasn't a long walk, the dorm belonging to the Yellow Team sitting just after the turn of a corridor and half a dozen doors down. The four paused in a half circle in front of the door, which had an enlarged print of the front-page for _The Luna Nova Times_ issue one taped on to it, a commemoration of their achievement in being the first student-led tabloid in the history of the institution.

"Could we discuss this approach one last ti-" Diana started a final protest, but was cut off by a sudden and loud rumble. It wasn't an explosion like before, but rather, a tremor coming from underground. It had a mechanical rhythm to it, almost like an enormous whirring. Akko and Lotte yelped and hugged each other, Sucy not displaying any outwards reaction. The Blue Team representative of the four was quick to cast a green shield around them, in case this was an earthquake and a structural collapse happened.

After a few moments passed, the rumbling died down as quickly as it began. Akko could swear it felt as if the center of it moved towards the field of the campus. Trying not to give it much thought, she broke her embrace with her Finnish roommate as Diana dispelled the bubble, Sucy coming back to the earlier question with a deadpan 'no'.

With a sigh, Diana cast a summoning spell, a hairpin from her desk popping into existence on the open palm of her other hand. "If we must, then let's be subtle and clean about this." She knelled by the doorknob and bent the metal slightly into the shape of a lock-pick, carefully inserting it into the locking mechanism. She was cut off by a blast of green energy blasting the metal, breaking it into pieces and almost grazing the blonde.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Diana shouted, her furious semblance now inches away from Sucy's unfazed features. Akko and Lotte seemed just as annoyed, making sure to berate the girl who should be more careful around those who weren't used to being roommates to a living biohazard. 

Sucy wasn't moved, however. "I'm not the one wasting time here, Ethan Hunt. Now, get in and start searching."

Lotte followed her inside, continuing to admonish her lightly. Diana stood by the door, irate and trembling with anger. "Is she always this insufferable?" Akko placed a hand on her shoulder and nodded solemnly, reliving her arduous task of being the Filipino's number one target for potions and dangerous things alike through all of their school year.

"Look, I know Sucy can be kind of mean but, she cares inside. Way inside. Like, _way_ inside." Akko shook her head to get back from the tangent. "Point being, she ultimately just wants to help us the way she knows to. Dangerous and full of poisons as it may be." The brunette sheepishly rubbed the back of her head.

That much was true, Diana had to concede; she'd discovered as much during their private tête-à-tête in the Red Team dorm. With a sigh, Diana let herself relax. "Alright, let's get this done with so my conscience may rest."

The pair entered the dormitory, which was thankfully devoid of its residents. Considering its relatively small square area, all were astonished at how much the journalists had managed to fit inside the dorm.

A large round table stood between their beds, a mess of articles, books, drafts, writing utensils, negatives, cassette tapes, files and photos. Their desk by the wall held a typing machine, a cliché propped against the wall on its left. A clothes-line hung over it, with clips holding developed pictures and almost finished drafts that had been approved for the next issue. The other side of the desk had a large filing cabinet with three drawers labeled 'A-G', 'H-T' and 'U-Z'. The only space available on the room for clothes or personal items were two chests resting on the end of their beds and some shelves, bolted to the walls or to the side rails of each bed.

Wangari's bed was not kept tidy at all, her sheets strewn over the mattress with little care. Her wall had photos of various journalism and talk-shows figures, like Larry King or Ana Bittencourt, the well-known host of the famous talk-show _Talking and Butterbeer_.

Joanna and Kimberly both showed more care for keeping their beds organized and neat, the former having a sizable collection of books on literature lining her shelf by the lower bunk of their shared double-bunk bed. The latter had a carefully organized mural of pictures of people and vistas on her part of the wall at the top bunk, the quote " _To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality_ ", attributed to one Henri Cartier-Bresson, written in beautiful cursive script under the display. 

Several minutes passed by, everyone carefully analyzing the compact newsroom with a fine comb - Diana far more reserved than any of the Red Team members, completely unused to partaking in one of Akko's usual rule-breaking affairs -, but their quest was to no avail. It had been a very off-the-wall chance anyway, so Akko didn't have high expectations, but it was nonetheless frustrating and kicked them back on square one.

Rummaging one last time through the chest resting by the single bed, which belonged to the team's captain Wangari, the brunette at least appreciated that they hadn't been caught.

A few seconds later, Akko found herself toppled in a mess of her own limbs on the floor, having yelped and tripped in surprise at a bright flash that filled the dimly-lit room, accompanied by a click.

"Extra, extra! School darling Atsuko Kagari shown to have secret naughty leanings~" a brash, loud voice mouthed into a skull-shaped microphone. By her side stood a girl holding an old-fashioned camera, the smirk on her mug and the fiery look behind her lenses indicating a good shot had been taken. The last part of the trio, somber as ever, furiously wrote into her handy notebook, occasionally stealing glances at the girls who had been caught sneaking red-handed.

Akko took notice that in her frantic stumble she had, in fact, clutched a piece of Wangari's underwear from inside the chest, the salmon fabric now laying, incriminatory, on her lap.

' _Oh come on, I didn't even say it out loud this time, Chance. Give a gay girl a break._ '

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this word puree, leave some feedback please!
> 
> Next chapter will be released around the turn of the month, if that's something you're hyped for I guess~ it was going to be part of this one, but when I reached the 6k word mark I started considering it would be too long so I broke it off.
> 
> The chapter title is a reference to the song Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode.


	5. The Pulitzer Price

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came out later than usual. Hit a creative block for a week or so, but hey, here it iiiiis  
> get ready it's a big one

Akko swatted away the offending underwear off her lap, but it was too late. This would be another one of her bad luck moments that'd go down on record - quite literally, considering this was the journalist team she was dealing with. There would no doubt be a lengthy article on _The Luna Nova Times_ detailing this embarrassing day in agonizingly intricate detail the following day, immortalizing her stupidity in the annals of the academy's history.

The brunette was jolted from her self-pity when something cold and metallic poked her cheek. The object, a microphone, was held by a kneeling Wangari, whose pink-tinted eyes burned with the fires of not just love but also journalistic passion. This unholy combination would commit arson on Akko's dignity, reducing it to smoldering ashes of shame.

"Normally, this intrepid reporter here has to make the rounds to find her scoops, y'know?" The reporter put a hand to her chest, looking quite proud of her self-described journalist prowess. "But it ain't common for the scoop to _find me_ , let alone in my own room! Not that I'm complaining, you're a story I wanna know each little dirty detail of~" With her free hand, the orange-haired witch briefly traced the curvature of Akko's jawline.

Akko could only sigh. These constant innuendos were grating on her nerves. "Yeah, I'm sure you do."

"Remember the agreement, Wangari. No touching the Savior of Magic." The words, spoke with a dull voice that resembled her Filipino roommate's, came from the writer of the news writing team. Her cold eyes were peeking from beneath her fringe with disapproval at the touch-happy Captain.

_'Agreement?'_

"Ay, I know, I know, just getting a small taste test." Standing up, Wangari looked down on Akko, who was still tumbled on the floor. She also let her eyes wander over to Sucy, Lotte and Diana - not at all bothered by the break-in, but if anything, enthralled by the story behind it. "So, what brings the number one hottie to my humble abode, eh, Froggo? Am I being given the honor of a personal press conference?"

Joanna cleared her throat. "That would be _our_ abode, Wangari, stop trying to hog her to yourself!" Kimberly nodded besides her.

"Y'all no fun, lemme say! Let a girl have her delusions of grandeur~" the reporter chuckled.

Diana lent her hand to help Akko get up, missing a spark of anger flashing through the eyes of all of the Yellow Team members. "Please allow me to apologize on the behalf of all of us, Wangari. We were desperate to find an item we need and thought you might have. Admittedly," the blonde shot her mauve-haired accomplice a dirty look, speaking through gritted teeth, "this was far from the best way of going about it and I said so from the start." The Filipino could only shrug.

"Ooh." Wangari nodded. "I getcha, I getcha, I've done some pretty crazy things in name of this newspaper before. But _what exactly_ did ya need my panties for?"

The Finnish witch of the ensemble blushed in the corner and frantically waved her hands. "W-we weren't looking for your panties! We're looking for a plant from your home country, which we thought you might have!"

The reporter's brown eyes glinted before she wittily replied, "Oh, I'm quite the pretty flower, why don't you pick me? But spill those beans, girlo!" Wangari poked Akko's nose with her microphone, the girl still dusting herself off from the fall. "Whatcha looking for? Tell me and maybe I can help."

' _Maybe we still have a chance after all!_ ' thought the brunette giddily despite her right eye twitching when she was booped. "We're looking for the flowers of a plant called meru oak, which are like, super rare and epidemic to Kenya or something like that." Sucy pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed in the background.

"Meru oak, huh…" Wangari mulled before shouting an 'aha!'. "You're in luck today, dreamboat, 'cuz I just so happen to have some of those. Gift from my grandma, to remind me of home, y'know? Very nice stuff."

Collectively, the anti-potion task force widened their eyes in surprise - bar Sucy, who remained impassive though pleasantly surprised. It had been a very small chance and it paid off.

"So you're gonna give the flowers to me, right?!" Akko grasped Wangari's shoulders in her excitement. She put on the best sexy look she could, though it mostly looked like constipation. "I am your loved one or whatever, after all, so of course you wouldn't deny me~"

The reporter chuckled. "A'course not! Those eyes, red as the blood I've shed in my quest for sharing information, are truly irresistible." The brunette couldn't help but snort at the poetics the Kenyan witch was waxing. "But I am an investigative journalist. As a woman of my craft, I believe in exchanges, so I'll give you those flowers if you comply with a condition."

Of course there's a condition, thought the team currently trying to revert the mess in varying reactions of frustration. "This is so contrived," the Filipino sighed while propping herself against the bunk bed. "This whole thing is like a poorly written comedy."

Akko was already expecting the worse. After Barbara and Hannah almost took away her precious virginity, there was no way a request from one of these rabid love-stricken witches would be anything tame.

"Let me guess, is it a kiss? You want to do the Pocky game? My nude body in a mattress full of rose petals? Just spit it out already so this can be over with, please." Gone by unnoticed, a blush and a scowl warred for territory in a certain blonde's face upon hearing the preposterous prospect.

"Ain't nun'na these options bad, but that's not what I want." The orange-haired witch smiled from ear to ear. "I want to interview you."

The Japanese witch had been blindsided. "Eh?"

 

* * *

 

"Ouch!" Akko yelped as the needle poked her tanned skin. "Be careful!"

The sewer currently adjusting her outfit gasped and leaped to check her client's injury. " _Mon Dieu_! Please forgive me, _Mademoiselle_ Kagari." Sarah kissed Akko's hand as an act of apology, a chivalrous gesture that would have been far more appreciated if it came from Diana.

The girl that dominated the brunette's thoughts was standing a few steps away. She tutted. "Must we really go through with this? Akko has faced enough today."

Lotte chimed in. "It's not like we know where the flowers are, so we need to trade for Wangari's help." Needless to say, the faerie summoner wasn't any happier.

The resident potion-maker lazily laid down on a couple of chairs pushed against each other, flipping through a magazine she held above her face. She looked like she couldn't care less for her roommate's predicament. "At least we know she's not lying. The potion wouldn't allow her to, because love and bla bla bla."

The resident potion-maker was lazily laying down on a couple of chairs pushed against each other, flipping through a magazine she held above her face. She looked like she couldn't care less for her roommate's predicament. "At least we know she's not lying. The potion wouldn't allow her because love and bla bla bla."

Sighing, the Cavendish took a seat, watching as the _couturière_ skillfully moved pins, needles and thread while making sure the dress Akko wore for the grand interview fit her curves perfectly. Though the circumstances involved were upsetting and less than ideal, she couldn't deny a bout of admiration at how well the rambunctious girl fit the formal garments. A flash of the evening at the Hanbridge manor flashed through her mind, forcing Diana to hold down yet another blush. Who'd guess she'd eventually become smitten with the brunette dork like then, but genuinely? An unthinkable future, a previous iteration of the prodigy might have said, but time works strange magics.

"Say, Diana," a monotone voice ran over her train of thought. "I've been wondering. What's your excuse for not being affected by the potion? I've been thinking it over and I have no idea."

The blonde was caught off guard by the question. "Hmm. Perhaps it is due to having been stung by the Love Love Bee once. The venom might have made me immune to the effects of your morally questionable potion." The jab, as usual, ricocheted off the Filipino's armor of indifference. "Besides that… nothing. That's the only reason that comes to mind." Diana lightly nibbled her lower lip at the little white lie.

Sucy, snarky as ever, let out an evil chuckle. Whatever expression she held was hidden by the magazine she held in front of her. "Yeah, sure. Let's go with that, Juliet."

"Juliet? Are you perhaps referencing Sh-" she was cut off by the Finnish girl springing from her seat at her side to admire her now fitted roommate.

"Akko! You look like a princess!"

"I suppose even you can look pretty in the right dress," teased the third Red Team member.

Diana agreed with these reactions, inspecting the dress - a bright, vivid bundle of red fabric with sequins that resembles like a raging flame, hugging the slim curves of the brunette all the way down to the triple-layered skirt ending on the middle of her thighs. She wore a matching pair of slippers on her feet, her stylist apparently having passed on using stockings, likely to showcase the athletic witch's attractive legs. Finally, a modest silver necklace ended just above her bust. A bust that was teased by a neckline that lacked modesty in its cut…

Then Diana took notice of how she'd been all but ogling the girl. It seemed that Akko had noticed it too. Both blushed and looked away from each other. Acting as though the previous seconds hadn't happened, the blonde cleared her throat. "Indeed. Your attire suits you very well, Akko."

"Heh, thanks! Guess if I have to do this interview thing, might as well be while looking my best." She lifted one of her feet and twirled, supporting herself on the ball of her other foot, actually enjoying how the fabric hugged her shape. "I gotta say, Sarah, you did a pretty good job here!"

The sewer curtsied, still holding a pincushion in her hand. " _Merci_ , _Mademoiselle_ Akko."

Akko turned her attention back to her soon-to-be host. "Alright, remind me of how this is going down again."

"That be simple, Froggo," Wangari started while looking at a mirror, trying and failing to tie a bow tie around her neck. "Every girl in the school gets to ask you a question and you'll have to answer. Truthfully, of course. Getting to know you better was the agreement."

"There is that word again, agreement. What do you mean by that?" asked the Cavendish descendant. "Is this a truce arranged between the three of you?" If her own roommates could join forces despite the potion, nothing stopped the journalists from doing the same.  
Not looking up from the series of notes she was taking - currently of Akko's attire -, Kimberly responded. "Not just between ourselves, but the entire school." She turned a few pages back on her note block, finding the section in which she wrote down about the agreement as part of the compilation that would eventually be released as 'Dossier Kagari'.

"When two members of the Blue Team tried to kidnap Akko, the majority of the student body followed in pursuit. However," she pointed the ball of her pen to the brunette in the limelight, "she disappeared and caused a commotion. Everyone started arguing and screaming. Then Amanda showed up, her face 'beet-red and swollen' from the contend in the cafeteria. She was 'positively livid'." She took small pauses to read the contents of her notes verbatim. "She got into an argument with someone and it became a magical battle. They fired shots at each other, up to when Amanda went overboard and blasted a hole on the wall. It ended up starting a magical fire."

' _Well, that would explain the fire._ '

"And that is when I, the grand savior of everyone's sorry butts," the local reporter jutted out a thumb to point to herself, "stepped on top of the soapbox and reminded everyone that you can't get to the bottom of stuff without information. After all, save for your usual clique, no one really knows what you like besides exploding or breaking stuff." Akko grumbled. "That's when I called for a truce. We all decided we'd find a way to learn more about you!"

The brunette bit the inside of her cheek. "I guess that's not so bad? Better than having them trying to force their way inside my personal space."

"And you can thank me for that, girl. Now, if you'll excuse me," Wangari turned on her foot, adjusting her sloppily tied polka-dotted bow tie with a snarky grin, "I have a talk show to host. Enter through the back door when you're ready, m'lady, the crew will be expecting you." With a final bow, the Kenyan witch left the empty storage room that had been turned into a makeshift dressing room for the current Luna Nova pop star, super fancy Hollywood food unfortunately not included. Sarah and the rest of the journalism team followed suit, leaving only the non-infected witches to inhabit the space.

Once the door closed behind the two, Diana placed a hand on the elegantly-clad girl's shoulder, not able to stop herself from clenching the silky red fabric in her worry. Her silent gaze transmitted already spoken words of concern and a wish for Akko to reconsider complying with the reporter's demand. And the brunette heard all that gaze said and shook her head. "I already told you, I'm going to do this."

"I'm worried. These girls are not in their right mind and I doubt they will limit their questions to the realm of the socially acceptable, Akko. They could be hurtful. Seeing you have to expose yourself to public humiliation without doing anything feels so… unacceptable to me." Try as she might, Diana couldn't rack her mind enough to find another solution that would allow them to revert the potion.

Akko shuffled on her feet nervously. "Well, yeah, I know. But my selfishness already got us here, I'm not going to let it keep us from getting out too." She stood silent for a couple of moments, before balling her fists and marching out of the room determinedly, ready to endure her task. "No interview will topple Atsuko Kagari, the girl who stopped a missile on live television! Let the trial of fire begin!"

The remaining three followed behind her, all with diverse feelings for the situation - but certainly no one with as much of a mixed bag as Diana. Concern, frustration, budding love and, as of right now, admiration. Of course this abysmal dork would look at public embarrassment for the sake of helping others in the eye, right before tackling it headfirst into it without thinking of the consequences it'd cause her.

Sucy snorted diabolically, a mad grin ripping through her face. "Akko's a complete idiot. But I'm grateful she is. This interview is gonna put the Watergate ones to shame."

The heiress dreaded she might be right.

 

* * *

 

The classroom was pitch-dark as Akko opened the door save for a couple of portable stage lights turned to a desk with two chairs. A large curtain separated the desk she'd be sitting at from the audience's seats. Despite her previous boisterous claims of courage, she was nervous, especially since she had separated from her friends earlier. The three of them would be coming in through the upper entrance of the amphitheater-styled room like the other girls.

"Good evening." Akko had to quickly retrieve her fleeting soul and footing after Kimberly appeared out of nowhere (perhaps from her communion with the shadows), measuring her up with dark analytical eyes. ' _Geeze, if you're trying to make me attracted to you, maybe cut down on the evil stares and goth shtick._ '

The redactor tapped the mic of the communications headset she was using. "Akko's arrived, Wangari, tell the crew to finish settings things up. Let the audience inside five." Some light static came in a few seconds after, which Akko assumed was the girl replying. Kimberly nodded. With a slightly warmer look on her face, the journalism team member guided the brunette to take a seat at the desk.

She noticed that the edge of the stage had a row of amethysts placed over a set of two lines, connecting from wall to wall. She had no idea what those were for. As for the desk, there were papers belonging to Wangari, a pitcher of water with two glasses, a flower vase and a strange cube with a surface that resembled porcelain. Akko had no idea what that was supposed to be. Maybe some exotic decoration.

"I'll get you something to eat. Joanna, microphone!"

"On it!" The peppy girl appeared from behind the curtain, having her own headset and carrying a bag of transmission equipment. "Good evening, dearest Ms. Kagari! Excited for your very first interview?"

Akko tch'd. "Sure, I'm hollering. Whoop whoop." Why didn't essentially saving the world get her an interview, huh? This wasn't how she wanted to reach stardom. That daydream involved more risque and dazzling magician outfits slash mind blowing magic tricks and less lesbians tugging on her skirt.

Well, okay, maybe she was lying on that front. But still.

Joanna pinned a microphone to the neckline of Akko's dress, connecting it to a transmissor that was on her back. "Very well then, say something for sound check!"

Kimberly set a plate of biscuits on the table, and the brunette threw one into her mouth. "One, two, three, _kuso_ all of this hecking day." Sure enough, her voice echo'd back to her ears from large speakers that had been set in front of the stage and on the back of the room. "When did you get all of this tech stage stuff anyway?"

"Some a'it is the school's, some a'it our dear Albrechtshamburger smuggled in in exchange for some favors," spoke a voice from Akko's left, dripping with eagerness. "Ah, to think I'd host my own talk show to the entire school! This is the day mumma told me about. The grand beginning of my career, the first step straight into the big leagues!" Wangari had large stars in her eyes, clearly reveling in what truly amounted to nothing impressive. But Akko wasn't heartless enough to shatter the Yellow Team leader's dreams of national cable news or sports commenting or whatever she pined for.

' _So this is what I sounded like when talking about Chariot,'_ the brunette mused. "Okay, that's good. Let's just start the show."

"Ain't sweeter words ever been said, you sweet li'l cupcake!" Akko gritted her teeth, cursing how pet-name-creative this potion made these girls. Wangari slid the chair opposite hers back and took her seat, adjusting her own lapel microphone and then her bow tie which Joanna had finally taken pity upon and corrected. She had ditched the usual navy blue vest of their uniform as well as the skirt, leaving the polo shirt and adding the bow tie and one-size-too-big pants with suspenders. "Dang good Larry King get-up, innit?" Akko had been so invested in the comical attire that she took a moment to register she was being talked to. "Seeing you staring like that, though. Wasn't aware the girls would dig it too. Live an' learn~" The reporter's smirk widened and her eyebrows wiggled.

"Start. The. _Show._ "

Wangari barked out some orders into her mic. Joanna skipped over and placed one last stone on the center of the row of amethysts, though this one was a citrine. A faint glow lit through their glossy surfaces.

The large curtains were drawn back, revealing the usual rows of three-person desks. The audience - clad in formal attire, as requested in the host's RSVPs - was allowed in and started filing into the seats. Akko was happy to see that Lotte, Diana and Sucy were granted the desk closest to the stage as she had asked. Lotte and Sucy both wore outfits similar to the ones from the Hanbridge ball - the former waved meekly, the latter's stare was akin to that of a dead fish.

Diana wore a dark blue and yellow striped tie with a brown suit that hugged her curves like a lover, and damn did that visage ever make Akko wish she was that lover. It wasn't an easy task to tear her eyes away before she was caught staring. Neither wished to repeat the awkward moment from earlier. Turns out, however, there wasn't much need to - Diana had chosen to adorn a cold mask for tonight, avoiding meeting the Japanese's eyes or any of the scene. Not out of bitterness, but as a means to disguise the burble of emotions inside of her. She had perfect repression through stoicism long ago.

Akko was able to pick out a few faces from the crowd - Amanda, Jasminka, Avery, Gaëlle, Alice, Elfriede, and so on. She noted that Constanze seemed absent. Maybe she was just too small to be seen from down here? Hannah and Barbara were also missing, but after the blonde cabbage rage inflicted upon them, she hardly doubted either would wake up so soon. Jasminka pushed a trolley of Akko-shaped Italian straws, distributing them among everyone.

Once everything was settled and Wangari received a final thumbs-up from Kimberly who held a checklist a few feet away, the show began. Three multicolor spotlights flared from different places on the ceiling and converged on the desk at the center of the stage. A jazz band composed by three students, all using sunglasses and grey suits with matching fedoras, begun playing some [relaxing bar music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8jlnog0Fg) to set the tone.

"Ladies and… more ladies!" shouted an overly enthusiastic Wangari to the crowd. "Welcome to the firstest edition ooooof… _The Magic Table with Wangari Kamau_!" There was a large round of thunderous applause. The spirit was not shared by those sitting closest to the stage. Lotte slowly and nervously clapped, while Sucy remained impassive and Diana's muscles seemed to contract further. 

"Oh, and of course, give a holler to our beautiful, amazing, loving, cutsie, gorgeous, loving-even-if-really-clumsy…" she stopped when she caught sight of Kimberly motioning for her to cut it out with a swiping palm. "…and Savior of Magic, Atsuuuuko Kagari!" 

If the applause before had been thunderous, this one deserved the neologism hurricaneous. That was the best adjective Akko could come up with, anyhow. Delighted screams, whistles, catcalls and loving cries erupted from the hopelessly smitten crowd. One desperate girl jumped from her seat and bolted down the aisle towards the stage.

" _AKKO, PLEASE HAVE MY BABIES!_ " The brunette watched in horror as the fangirl manically ran in her direction. However, the girl was impeded from reaching her target when her body loudly crashed against an invisible shield that extended from the floor to the ceiling, courtesy of the line of protection spell stones laid in front of the stage. Akko winced at the oof-ow-hurt-juice noise, but was nonetheless relieved.

"Ah, yes! I would like to remind everyone of the agreement: no one gets to lay their hands on the bunny girl here until we get to know her better, ya hear?" Akko really wished the condition was her consent, but it was too late to cry over that spilled milk. "You there, missy," the host directed herself to the rabid admirer, now on the with a swelling bruise on her face. "You just lost ya right for a question. For shame, gal." The girl rubbed her sore spot and headed back to her seat with a pout.

Wangari snapped her fingers and another stage crew handed Akko a bouquet of mauve flowers and a heart-shaped box of candy. "A present from all of us to you, m'cutie." 

"Oh, huh, thanks!" Akko couldn't help but smile at the gesture. "Can you take the flowers to one of my roommates, please?" The stage crew complied, unlocking the back door and taking the long trip to the upper door of the auditorium. Akko didn't really bother much with formalities and ripped off the ribbon around the candy box, craving her teeth on the first _dulce de leche_ bonbon her hands found. "Oh, dang, this is the good stuff! Did you get this from Blytonbury?"

"Nah, we broke into Finnelan's office and stole it from her guilty pleasure candy stash." Akko choked, taking a gulp from her glass of water to push the sweet down. "I know that she has one because I know everyone's dirty secrets of course," Wangari winked slyly. The brunette slid the box away from her, suddenly having lost her appetite.  

The presenter turned to the audience. "Without further ado, ladies! Please look under your seats! Each one has a random number under it assigning the order the questions will be asked. I'm aware you all are dying to learn more about Akko-poo here, so I decided to be a sweet humble angel and volunteered myself to be among the last ones." The girl flashed a card with the number 154 out of a total of 155 on it. The audience dug under their seats to find what number they'd been assigned.

One hundred and fifty five questions, then. Was the room colder, or was that the blood draining from her face? Nah, it's the cold. She wasn't scared out of her mind at all, oh no.

Someone in the crowd whooped - it was Blair, with a bandage on her cheek. "I am number one! Take that, bitches!"

There was a wave of cries of disappointment and annoyance. Wangari smirked. "Yeah yeah, Robbie Rotten, we hear ya. Go on." A microphone was handed to the gold-locked witch.

"So, question number 1! Akko…" she moved her jaw, deciding on her words. "What's your favorite color?!"

A loud hack caught everyone's attention, coming from one Amanda O'Neill, half of her hair charred from the explosion she caused. The maroon-haired girl was using a suit and hairstyle almost identical to those of their Appleton venture. "Oh, sorry everyone, got a li'l thing stuck in my throat! Cough, ack- _LAME_! Whoo, that feels better." 

"Hey, the point is learning about who Akko is and her likes! So what if I start with something basic? What were you planning to do, ask her favorite sex position?"

Amanda flashed a card showing the number 36. "Wait a bit and you'll find out, babe." She winked, the left side of her mouth pulling up into a cheeky smirk. It would've looked more gallant if her face wasn't covered in soot.

Blair seemed content with not dignifying the fiery-haired witch with an answer. "So, Akko?"

The witch blinked, being caught off guard. Her thoughts had wandered off to the uncomfortable place proposed by Amanda. "Uh… pink, I guess." There was a loud 'ping!' and a flash of green light from the center of desk, startling the interviewee's frazzled nerves out. She fought not to topple on her chair. "The heck?!"

"Oh, stupid me, I totes forgot to tell ya!" Wangari slapped her forehead. "This here is a Wahrité, snazzy cube that detects whether ya telling the truth or not."

"This is getting interesting," Sucy quipped from her seat.

Diana was not as amused. She raised from her chair, looking thoroughly flummoxed. "This is preposterous, Wangari! That artifact is illegal for being a violation of human rights! Where did you even acquire one?!" 

"So, there's this wonderland of fun called the artifact vault. That's where the teachers hide this amazing stuff from us. Amanda helped me get in. _THANKS FOR THAT, BABY GIRL_!" the scream produced a deafening feedback that made everyone in the room cringe and cover their ears. "Oops, got a bit excited there. Me bad, peoples."

"I cannot allow this breach of privacy! Remove the Wahrité from this precinct _now_!"

"Oh, alright, what a compelling argument. Let me see, hmm… nope! No can do, princess. Gotta make sure Akko's holding up her side of the deal~"

"This… I… this is completely…!"

The girl who held the number 2 card in the audience cried out impatiently. "Oh, keep your moral panties to yourself, Cavendish! You're such a snob! Who died and made you judge of ethics?!" Other voices joined the chorus. Diana's face flushed red with anger, but she was ultimately forced back into her seat, defeated by the ignorant and absurdly distasteful mob.

"So inadequate. Is a potion any excuse for intolerable moral decisions of this sort?" She would spend a good portion of the following interview half-listening and half-grumbling. "What a travesty."

Sucy, who was tasked with holding the bouquet, pursed her lips. "Oh my, they put you in Scrooge mode in record time, princess. I'm starting to not regret making that potion so much. This will be some of the most fun I've had in ages." She slumped into her seat and bit into the sweet provided by Jasminka, preparing herself for the banquet of _schadenfreude_ to come.

 

* * *

 

Now, there were many fairly harmless questions. Favorites were common: animal (rabbit), dish (Jasminka asked that one - _teriyaki_ ), tourist spot (Lake Motosu), show ( _Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon_ ), book franchise ( _My Hero Academia_  - manga _is_ literature!!), movie ( _Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back_ ), game ( _Puyo Puyo Tetris_ ), music genre (anything EDM, but Vocaloid had a special place in her heart) etc. There were those who asked about small, daily life things, such as how she liked her tea (plum with lots of sugar), whether she had any pet peeves with her food, so on - very much contributing to the atmosphere of getting to know her better before trying to flirt with her.

Some asked what she disliked. Her answers would include boring romantic comedies, walking in high-heels and potatoes. Other questions revolved around her hobbies and general tastes - Akko would go on to talk of her manga and Nendoroid collections back at Japan, of her random knowledge on how to prepare handcrafted soap, about how she had learned to produce fireworks with home materials and the fact she loved riding her cute pink bike with a basket on weekends, just strolling along the shore and enjoying the smell of sea salt while listening to music. Sometimes she would take Mr. Hoshi, her old pudgy cat, along for the ride.

Alas, not all questions were to be tame. Where would the fun be in that? 

 

♦ 17 ♦

"Have you ever committed a crime?"

Leave it to Kimberly to ask a question like that. "I do frequently snatch some stuff that isn't mine from the kitchen. So, uh, technically?"

The cube flashed green. The answer didn't seem to be one the writer expected, but that was her one question answered truthfully. 

' _I'm such a bad girl. Check it out, Dia._ ' Never mind that the dangerous and wild tart robber would usually consume the treats while watching moe animes on a DVD player she'd gotten from Constanze.

 

♦ 36 ♦

"So, what _is_ your favorite sex position?" asked one ruthless Amanda.

Welp. She literally couldn't lie here. The truth cube kept close track of the veracity of her claims. "I…" Her face was coloring. To answer this is front of not just an audience of dozens, but her crush, was a nightmare. "…I don't know, okay? I'm a virgin."

Whispers immediately ran through the student body.

"Ooh. So I might get to pop your cherry after all?"

"That's _quite enough_ , O'Neill!" shot a livid Cavendish from the front. The daredevil waved her hand dismissively, letting it go. Maybe the floor would cede and swallow Akko if her dreams and hopes were full of enough determination.

 

♦ 43 ♦

"What's one of your secret dreams?"

Akko placed the tips of her thumbs against each other and started turning them clockwise, one of her anxious quirks. "Well, of course I wanna be like Chariot and bring happiness to everyone with my magic. But, sometimes I… kinda wish I could be an idol. Not like Chariot is, but more like, using super pretty dresses and frilly short skirts and singing to a crowd of fans." She blushed. Some in the crowd aww'd. 

"How short?!" was card 44's immediate question.

She didn't really enjoy admitting this, but… "Very short. Uhm, enough to get people… _interested_. You know what I'm talking about." So maybe Akko Kagari liked people admiring her body a bit, so what? Her legs were to die for, it would be a shame to deprive the world of that sight.

Diana suddenly found her mind _really_ liked the image of Akko in a very short miniskirt, the image persisting for far longer than adequate. She groaned. 

 

♦ 78 ♦

"What's your sexuality?"

Oh boy, hard question. "Well, uh, I'm not really sure. Back in my country everything is so much more conservative, so I haven't had a lot of time to think about that. I know [I don't really like boys](http://sushiobunny.tumblr.com/post/165058394750/so-im-compiling-interesting-stuff-from-the). But I also don't just fawn over every pretty girl I see, I kinda want some connection there. So… maybe demi and gay?"

The charred American in the crowd scoffed. "Dude, did you really need to waste your question on something so obvious?"

"I-I'm not that obvious, Amanda."

"Yeah, and I'm a pretty hetero princess, look at my long flowing tresses."

 

♦ 81 ♦

Joanna was the next one. "What would you use for a sexy photo shoot?"

"Uh…" Well, if she _had_ to… "A short maid outfit." That had always been a bit of a kink, but seeing Hannah and Barbara pull it off way too well kind of made her want to try it out herself.

Someone in the crowd had to excuse themselves after the statement, holding a handkerchief to their nose. Akko made no effort to linger on it.  

 

♦ 92 ♦

"What is your biggest guilty pleasure?"

"Uh…" Maybe if she used obscure words, people wouldn't get it. "Reading yuri ecchi."

A voice raised three rows back. "That means sexually suggestive lesbian or sapphic-oriented content in media. In this specific context it likely means the depiction of such in manga." Gaëlle pushed her glasses up. "I am also fluent in Japanese as well as Fish. I am glad we share a passion for languages, Akko."

' _Whyyyyyy?!_ '  

"Don't toot your own horn so much, dork. That's, like, common internet knowledge, Gayelle," retorted a beady-eyed girl called Alice.

"That's not how one pronounces my name. A-and I wouldn't know of that. I would not ever seek such indecency online. Ever." The linguistics enthusiast's cheeks were dusted with pink.

Why was this academy so chock full of useless and repressed lesbians?

 

♦ 113 ♦

"Most embarrassing moment," Sucy asked nonchalantly. 

Wow, low blow, Manbavaran. "Well, one time I was like, eleven? And we had a party at school and stuff, everyone was to come in with costumes. I went as Shiny Chariot and prepared a super big entrance, I'd come from the roof and set off fireworks. But then my cape caught on fire and the smoke machine covered the field in fog and caused everyone to panic."

She recalled one distraught teacher screaming 'our sins have brought divine gouache fury upon us!' when she accidentally dropped a paint bucket she'd been using to paint a cute rainbow on their head.  "All I know is that, by the end, I had managed to burn off the principal's wig and half of my fringe off. That's actually why I started using my hair like this." Akko had a premonition that this day, however, would top that one on the ranking.

Sucy slowly clapped. "At eleven? If I didn't know you, Kagari, I'd assume you were intentionally trying to burn your school down. Your teacher of evil is proud."

"I'm _flattered_ , Sucy." 

 

♦ 130 ♦

"Who was your first kiss?"

Akko shuddered at the memory. "This super  _chūnibyō_ boy who thought he was a revived wizard king wanted me to be his queen or whatever, just because I liked magic. He forced me to kiss him and I slapped him. That's when I realized I _really_ didn't like boys." 

Lotte, the next one in line, raised her hand passionately, looking as fiery as she did during the Night Fall con. "Oh, but that didn't count! Who was your first _real_ kiss?! The girl who swept you off your feet and carried you to a land of wonders in an encounter of silky lips by the moonlight…" she sighed romantically.  

"Uh… no one, really. I'm kinda demiromantic and stuff? Gotta be a really special girl to steal that from me." 

She hoped her eyes darting to a certain blonde in the crowd wasn't too obvious.

 

♦ 152 ♦

"Akko, I heard you like Professor Chariot! As in, like _like_! Is that true?" 

"Well, uh…" Akko drummed her fingers on the rough wood surface of the desk. "I… I guess there was a point where I _did_  have a, well…" ' _Oh merciful God, please shoot a lightining bolt down on me to finish my misery._ ' "A crush on Ms. Chariot. B-but!" She quickly added to stop the whispers that erupted, looking incredibly nervous and sweaty. "I-I don't think of her like that anymore and when I did I was just a stupid kid! Every kid has celebrity crushes, right?!" She waved her arms frantically. Declaring she once had a crush on one of their teachers would be her social death once the spell was reverted. "Besides, I already like someone els-" she slapped a hand over her mouth, but far too late. The accusatory ping from the Wahrité rung dutifully.

' _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ '

The reaction was immediate. Excited whispers ran through the crowd. The next question, coming from Elfriede, was inevitable. Each of the short seconds preceding it filled the brunette with dread.

"Are you crushing on someone from the school?"

"…No."

A loud buzz. She glared at the offending cube, currently flashing a vivid red. Wangari wagged her pointer finger.

"Oh, cutie pie, that ain't how the game works and you know it!"

Akko turned the pitcher of water on her cup and took a deep gulp of the liquid to steel herself. "Okay, fine! Open up your ears and listen well, Luna Nova! I'm crushing on someone from this school, damn right!" She crossed her arms and stared down the crowd. "Enjoying this, huh?!" She pointed accusingly at the host of the show. 

"Oh, you bet ya butt! And I'll enjoy it even more when you answer my question," the Larry King inspired girl showed her card, 154. "Who is the girl that stole ya heart?"

Ah, that explained it. The world wasn't content with Akko just confessing to Diana the way she tried to earlier. It would have to be in front of an entire crowd in the middle of the most awkward maelstrom of her life. But you know what? So be it. Her personal life and privacy had already been desecrated in front of a live audience. She was now a woman who had not a drop of shame left in her!

(It sounded cool in her head but it was really just sad.)

Though everyone's attention had been on her from the very first moment, it seemed to intensify as they awaited her next words. All of these girls were crushing on her, and while all of them held the hope they might the witch's crush, they were equally afraid the opposite was true. In a moment, the brunette would crush the dreams of about a hundred and fifty two girls if her math was correct.

With a confident gait, Akko waltzed up to the end of the stage, hands on her hips. "Alright then, ladies and gals and non-binary pals! I, Atsuko Kagari, stupid lesbian and queen of idiots, am head over heels in love for-"

" ** _NO!_** "

The enraged shout, loud enough to audibly reverberate through the entirety of the auditorium, silenced Akko's confession. Stomping up to the stage, hands balled into fists, was Diana Cavendish. She turned to the audience, looking livid. "I am horrified. Actually, no, I am _disgusted_. You girls claim to hold this pathetic event as a means to know Akko better, to get to understand who this girl is, so it won't be artificial when you go back to prodding her personal space. And that is _pitiful_. You should be ashamed of yourselves!" Her hand crumbled the card she held - 155, the very last one - and threw it away.

"Your attitudes are a disgrace to the concept of healthy and nurtured relationships! And I do not care if this is the result of a spell, I will _not_ stay in my seat and watch Akko humiliate herself further in front of you. This bizarre and sadist circus of horrors ends _now_!"

Sucy threw a handful of the popcorn she acquired during the interview into her mouth. "Dang. This is getting good."

The show's host threw an angry gaze at the heiress' direction. "Hey, we have a system going on here, Cavendish! You can't just barge in here and-"

" _Silence._ " The venom in Diana's voice immediately made Wangari recoil and shut up. "You are an absolute fool. I will not hear one more of you say you wish to engage with Akko when you cannot hold a sliver of respect for her dignity. None of you are able to comprehend how amazing this girl is."

Akko, who had been struck silent, widened her eyes. "Diana…?"

"This beautiful soul, kind and happy and so willing to bring joy into the world. This girl, which we, as a group, berated and belittled for her origins and dreams, was the one who ushered the new age of magic into the world. She deserves far more than what you are giving her right now!" Some in the crowd had their eyes cast down in shame.

"Atsuko Kagari," Diana turned to face the witch, placing her hand on the magic barrier. Wordless, Akko placed her hand atop hers from the other side. "I wronged you many times before. And I want to apologize formally - here, where everyone can hear it. Though our friendship has grown, I've never excused my past actions. Hard-headed and reckless as you might be, it was completely unwarranted of me to treat you like you were below me. To allow others to bully you without saying a word."

"Diana."

Tears were forming in the corners of the heiress' eyes. "To not recognize your potential like I should have. I was just…"

" _Diana._ "

Biting her lip, the Brit cut off her self-deprecating rant. She stared into Akko's eyes, which were beginning to look quite watery themselves.

"I used to think you were a snob, just a rich girl who thought she was better than everyone. But you know what? I was wrong! I literally had a day in your shoes and I saw who you really are past that stupid facade you won't let down."

The hand Akko placed on the invisible wall fidgeted, as she tried and failed to intertwine her fingers with the ones on the other side, the ones she so desperately wanted to hold and not let go. "You're so full of affection and good will. Even though you're like, a super perfect prodigy and spend hours and hours studying, you still find time to help anyone in need. You could just scoff and walk away like some kind of queen bee. But you _don't_. You share your knowledge out of the love in your heart. And I admire that so much!"

"Akko…"

"Plus, you bring out the best of me with your help. My grades are so much better because you understand I have these learning difficulties when the teachers don't. "

Diana chuckled weakly, wiping a stray tear away. Akko smiled, not bothering to do that with the streams flooding down her cheeks. Both stumbled over their words, their sentences bleeding together.

"Please, Atsuko, that is _nothing_ compared to the wonders I've seen you work in people. In me."

"You are my rival, Diana, and that will never change. You know why?"

"You keep breaking down the walls I erect to hide from the world and from myself. And if I must be honest, all of this makes it so I…"

"Because I want to look up to your dedication, to also get my magic back one day and amaze not just the world with it, but especially _you_. And the reason is that I…"

But in the end, as bonded hearts are wont to do, they synchronized. 

 

" _I love you._ "

 

The Wahrité lit up with green.

And then, the back door was kicked open.

"We found Kagari!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy oh boy what an ending huh pls comment love yall


	6. Learning Pains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking a month, guys. Between practicing digital drawing (which you can check out at my twitter, @hikarilie) and emotional stuff, my plate's been full. But, I'm back, baby! Enjoy!

“I love you.”

Diana and Akko stared at the other’s eyes, barely processing their mutual confession - an explosion of new feelings that bloomed to join other emotions that had already been brewing in their chests.

The crowd of love-infected girls, both in the audience and on the stage, was mute in aghast silence, the sound of the truth cube pinging akin to the famed pin falling on a cushion. All were displaying varying levels of shock and despair - some cried, some pulled at their hairs, and at least one was tying a noose (which the girl on the next seat promptly slapped out of her hands before both joined in a tear-filled hug).

So, when the backstage door was kicked open by Professor Nelson, all were caught completely off guard.

“We found Kagari!”

Two other teachers swarmed the stage, firing nullifying spells at the few stage crew that had drawn out their wands. Nelson made a beeline for Akko, who yelped when a pair of strong hands suddenly lifted her up like a sack of potatoes. The broom teacher placed Akko over her shoulder and whistled to her colleagues, who nodded and then sprinted out of the room with her, as though they were a tactical squad.

“Hey! Put me down!” Akko punched lightly against the older witch’s shoulder to no avail, and after a couple moments, the screaming girl disappeared out of the door.

“Akko!” Diana placed her hands on the barrier, in vain, unable to reach out to the brunette. Drawing out her wand, the blonde gathered mana at the tip of the rod, a bright crackle of turquoise energy she discharged at the invisible wall. The barrier crumbled after a loud magic explosion, and the heiress quickly sprinted on top of the stage, with barely any stamina left after the spell, and threw open the back door.

She looked towards both ends of the hallways, but there were no signs of Akko or her captors anywhere. The extraction, no doubt part of the usually bumbling teaching body’s own plan to combat the incident, had been far too effective for Diana’s liking. This was bad.

Desolate and dizzy after the rush of blood to her head from the sudden expenditure of energy, Diana returned to the classroom and sat herself at the vacant chair Akko had left in her wake. All of the witches in the audience were in varying degrees of panic, confusion or heartbreak, some leaving to look for the Japanese girl.

Loosening her tie, the witch closed her eyes and took deep breaths to steady her turbulent thoughts.

‘ _Alright, one thing at a time. I need to find Akko first so we can nullify the..._ ’

Her thoughts were interrupted when a rude and intrusive witch knelt in front of her, several inches too many into her personal space. The girl’s voice attempted to sound amused but hiding a clear hint of anger underneath its tone. “So, Diana. Who’d guess _you_ would be the one to steal Akko from all of us, huh.”

Diana looked up from the invisible space she’d sheltered herself in to think, staring unflinchingly at Amanda’s emerald irises. “Excuse me if I’m wrong, but last I checked, Akko was not an object or possession to be ‘stolen’.” Diana had to suppress an onslaught of butterflies, the shared confession with the brunette coming back to the forefront of her thoughts. Her mind hadn’t been allowed an iota of the processing power it needed to parse through the fact her first crush in a long while - if not the first one ever, and for Akko of all people - had been reciprocated.

“And much as I would like to be with Akko at the moment, I do not know where Ms. Nelson took her. So I’m sorry to say I won’t be of assistance, O’Neill,” the heiress finished, a subtle hint of venom dripping from the end of her sentence.

“Tch, whatever.” Amanda strode away from Diana after giving the blonde one last dirty look and left the room to check Akko’s whereabouts for herself. Once the American left, Diana let her shoulders drop from the defensive stance she had instinctively donned, sighing.

“Hey there, Diana,” spoke a soft voice, kind as it could be. The blonde tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear and turned towards Lotte, now sitting by the heiress’ side. “That was quite, eheh, something…” The Finnish bit her lower lip, her high heels clacking against each other as she procured the precise words. “You sounded really sincere and heartfelt just now. Not very usual of you.” Lotte smiled softly before her eyes widened and she flailed in place. “N-not that I’m saying you’re usually fake or anything like that! I, I just…”

Diana patted the redhead’s shoulder soothingly. “It’s fine, I understood what you meant. It’s not always that I let my walls down, let alone in such a public manner. But Akko has a way of…” The Brit gesticulated aimlessly. Lotte nodded. Both knew how powerful Akko’s influence on others could be.

“That was really romantic, you know? Like something right out of _Night Fall_. Akko’s been crushing on you for a while now, and…” her tender words were cut off by Diana.

The heiress raised her eyebrows, somewhat bewildered. “What do you mean, for a while now?”

“Gosh, you are as dense as she is. It’s adorable.”

Well, Akko had confessed her affection at the same time Diana did, that was a fact no amount of hardheadedness could deny. But it was hard to accept, nonetheless - she’d never given much thought to the matters of the heart, as she’d told Akko earlier. She was as unused to the idea of desiring someone as she was to that of _being desired_ by someone, or at least someone that wasn’t clearly just trying to weasel their way into her family name and properties.

“And while I know the circumstances aren’t the best,” Lotte continued, “I think… no, I know you’ll be good for each other!” Here, she held both of the Cavendish heiress’ hands, stars burning in her eyes as her voice rose in a crescendo of the fiery determination she usually only held for romance novels. “So let’s get through this nightmare! We’ll save Akko, the school, and then you two can finally allow your romance to properly blossom!”

“Lotte, I haven’t asked her out yet.”

“Yet! Come on, Diana, there’s no way she’s going to say no to you.”

“Especially considering the doofus had me brew that potion just to get your attention,” drawled one raspy voice who seemed to think three wasn’t a crowd, though given Sucy’s teasing nature, it likely would be.

The Brit couldn’t quite decide whether to scoff or chuckle, so she settled for somewhere between both. “That girl is impossible. All she had to do was talk to me, not concoct some bizarre scheme.”

“To be fair to our favorite idiot, you were quite oblivious to her advances,” Sucy threatened to smile. She loved playing with the blonde’s buttons.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Akko gave you a bouquet of flowers last week,” the bespectacled girl of the bunch pointed out. “Sucy and I spent an entire afternoon helping her pick the best flowers for it.”

“Oh.” Diana blinked. “I merely thought of it as an exchange of gifts between good friends. Irises symbolize how much you value the friendship of the person you’re gifting.”

“Which is why she also picked forget-me-nots, they symbolize love.”

Two pairs of eyes stared back incredulously at the alchemist.

“Tch, what? Flower language is part of botanic, it’s not so surprising I’d know something stupid like that. Plus, Akko bugged me to research it because she thought Princess would like it fancy and frou-frou.”

Diana blushed. “Oh. I thought the forget-me-nots were simply meant as a sign of the memories we shared and cherished mutually. But I _should_ have realized it isn’t exactly platonic etiquette to gift a bouquet of flowers to your acquaintances… when have I become so unobservant?”

Lotte sighed incredulously. “Dear Friends Syndrome, the catalyst of every slow burn. You sound just like Belle in that one fic where she has to cut her hair down and cannot see how Arthur feels for her, nor can she see the deep feelings of affection in her heart are more than just friendship.”

“Well, so Akko got the girl, cool. Now we have a school to save, so let’s get working on it.” Sucy raised from where she had sat at the edge of the stage and started her slithering walk up the stairs when Diana protested.

“B-but, Akko was just taken away! And we don’t have the flowers for the potion!”

“Of course we do.” From inside her cloak, Sucy retrieved a bouquet of mauve flowers. Diana’s eyes narrowed.

“When and where did you get that?”

“Wangari gave them to Akko at the start of the show. The potion doesn’t allow the girls to negate Akko’s wishes, but apparently it lets them tell some little fibs on the side.”

Diana immediately raised from where she sat and stomped furiously towards the Filipino witch, Lotte grabbing her by the arm to hold her back. “And why did you not say anything?!” The blonde fumed.

“Pfft, and miss that show? I’d be crazy to miss that.”

The Finnish cringed at the very audible sound of the heiress’ teeth gritting against each other.

“Why, you…!”

“And it got you two to confess. I am, as you see, but an agent of love.” Sucy made a gagging noise. “So, _allons-y_ , my friends, we have a potion to finish.” Her reference done and unfazed by the aristocrat fury she invoked, the alchemist turned around to begin the trek back to her room to finish the potion. Lotte patted the fuming Brit’s back, offering a condolent smile. Diana could do nothing but relent - there would be sufficient time at a later date to reprimand the insufferable Filipino.

Diana straightened her jacket and followed Sucy and Lotte on their way out of the classroom. “Well, Sucy, you can finish the potion by yourself, I believe. While you do that, I will go look for Ak-aaaah!”

When her stride up the stairs was interrupted by a hand grasping her arm, Diana automatically withdrew her wand and shot a defense spell against her assailant.

The girl yelped, only barely dodging the turquoise burst of mana. “Gah! Fucking hell, Cavendish, chill!” Ah, the ever importune O’Neill, lacking in charm, tact and definitely a sense of personal space.

The tip of the aristocrat’s wand poked Amanda’s throat. “Release my arm this instant. I don’t know what sordid thoughts you have in your mind, but I won’t acquiesce to them.” In their love haze, it was to be expected that the other students would turn against Diana after learning she was Akko’s crush. She wasn’t about to start a serious corporal fight with the American or anyone else, but perhaps her practiced intimidating stare would be enough bluff her way out.

“Geeze, can you speak like a human being for once? The fuck is acq… akies… eh, fuck it.” Amanda let go of the Brit’s skin and took a step back, straightening out the fabric of her own suit jacket. Diana had to concede that the girl, often orphaned by the concept of polish, looked quite dashing in the manly outfit. “Ain’t gonna be attacking you if that’s what you’re expecting, toots. At least not pronto. I want to trade.”

“Trade?” The mathematical precision with which Diana raised her brow in a perfect arc complimented her deadpan tone. “We’ve just ‘traded’ with Wangari, and quite frankly, I do not feel keen on having an encore.”

“Hey, hey,” the orange and salmon haired witch gesticulated with open palms. “Why so defensive? Jesus, it wasn’t the end of the world.” It took one look at Diana’s unimpressed stare for Amanda to acquiesce. “Fine, fine, we all got a little rowdy. Let bygones be bygones. So, here’s what I want - Akko’s got, like, a crush on you, right?”

Diana felt her features warm. “It would seem so, yes.”

“But I have a crush on Akko of my own part. Everyone does, the dolt’s a babe and a half with those sweet legs and whatnot.” Diana’s fingers clenched the inside of her palm ever so slightly. “But I’m a warrior, Princess, and I have only lost a battle, not the war.”

“I suppose you mean that, despite her speaking loud and clearly that she is already pining for another person, you will continue to pester her with your never to be reciprocated affection.”

“Harsh, yo. But, yeah, kinda. And if Akko’s got the hots for someone like you, well… I can’t really say what she sees,” Amanda opened her arms and traced Diana’s silhouette, “ _here_ , but if she does, then I want in on it. So, allow me a little bit of dramatic flair here,” the American said and then curtsied. “Will you teach me how to be a pristine broom-stuck-in-the-butt like you, Cavendish?”

The heiress could only sigh. “I have no time for such follies, O’Neill. If you’ll excuse myself and my posterior, which you seem so terribly fond of,” Sucy snickered in the background, “I have far more pressing matters to attend to than your teenage whims.” With a huff, Diana turned and resumed her walk.

“Remember when I said it was a trade?”

Diana didn’t look back when answering. “Yes. And I fail to see what you might have to offer that would be of my interest.”

“You seem quite busy, so. How about not being tied to a chair and locked inside the broom closet?”

Two girls blocked the trio’s exit. Diana grit her teeth as a quick inspection of her peripheral vision showed other girls encircling them. “You see, I’m not the only one who wants to conquer that girl’s heart, even if it means roleplaying you.”

“Tsk.” Diana walked a few steps down until she was in front of Amanda.

Then she slapped her.

Lotte gasped, while Sucy smirked ever so slightly. “Aw, snap.”

“You are woefully mistaken if you think I’ll give in and aid with your grotesque stalking _simply because_ you threaten me with physical restriction.”

Amanda rubbed the hand-shaped red spot currently burning on her skin. Her face closed into a deep frown. Her free hand lunged at the collar of Diana’s shirt, pulling her close. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Someone with _far_ more decency than you.”

With a nervous laugh, Lotte placed a hand on Diana’s shoulder and gently nudged her back. “Now, girls, there’s no need to fight…”

“Indeed. If you’ll allow us a moment.” Without any warning, Sucy pulled the heiress aside by her arm. The blonde protested at the action.

“Could you not interfere further in the affairs of other people, Manbavaran?!”

“You were about to get into a catfight with Amanda.”

Diana blinked and turned her head just enough to catch the American daredevil in her sights, Lotte applying a healing spell on Amanda’s bruise. Her eyes fell on her hand, still warm from the impact of flesh on flesh.

“You… you’re right.” The heiress shook her head. “What’s happening to me?”

“And here I thought you were more composed than this.”

Sitting herself upon one of the many seats usually reserved for classes, Diana sighed. “I feel pathetic. It is not expected of a Cavendish to act so boorishly.”

Sucy rolled her eyes. “There, there. We all have our moments, Princess. Now, if you’ve calmed down, I’d like to suggest you take Amanda up on her idea.”

“Excuse me?”

“Okay, picture this.” The alchemist flashed the bouquet of flowers. “You refuse to help them, they won’t let us leave. No potion, no rescuing Akko, then boom! Fwoosh.” Sucy’s long and bony fingers danced in the air, suggesting an explosion. “We’re doomed,” she drawled.

Diana had yet to be convinced. “So you leave me here, then what? I doubt you and Lotte could finish the transmutation circle by yourselves.”

“Don’t worry, Lotte and I will rescue you once we’re done preparing the potion, as much as the idea of leaving you to their mercy is tantalizing.”

“And why should I trust you?” the blonde deadpanned.

Sucy’s single visible eyebrow raised. “You don’t really have any other options, now, do you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

Over the alchemist’s shoulder, Diana gazed at the impatient horde of Akko’s admirers. It deeply annoyed the prodigy to hit one ridiculous roadblock after the other like this, but it was for Luna Nova’s sake in the end. For Akko’s as well.

“Fine. Just… do not take long, is all I ask of you.” Diana pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I do not wish to indulge this buffoonery for one second longer than necessary.”

The platinum blonde walked over to Amanda, who eyed her up and down suspiciously.

“What?” The daredevil spat on the carpet derisively. “Came looking for a real mano-a-mano, Cavendish?” Amanda closed her right hand into a fist, punching the inside of her other palm loudly.

“I accept teaching you.”

“Well, ya sure about that? I’ve got a mean right hook I reserve for bitches like…” The American blinked. “Huh, wait, what?”

Diana could only roll her eyes and sigh exasperatedly. She straightened her back and wore her most trained expression, the patented Ice Queen look. “Those of you who so wish to learn how to be like me, take your seats.” Whipping out her wand, Diana cast several spells on the stage that had just now been used for the talk show, turning the table into a proper desk and conjuring a floating blackboard for her use. The attendance wasted no time in filing into their seats, tripping on each other while Diana started her lecture without ado.

“To be a Cavendish is to be a proper lady. Part of that is etiquette.” All eyes were enraptured on her, the witches desperately writing down her words on their arms, the desks or materialized sheets of parchment.

The distraction worked well enough. Sucy and Lotte silently left the classroom, as Diana magically amplified her voice and cleared her throat. The witches hung to every word the blonde had to speak.

“Each of you is to materialize a book that follows these measures,” she pointed to the blackboard, upon which measures for size and weight were magically inscribed, “and balance it on your heads while keeping your backs straightened to train your postures.”

The girls scrambled to follow her commands. In her impetus, Amanda summoned a book far larger and heavier than the one required, the paper behemoth falling on her head and crushing her.

Diana winced. After a few seconds passed, she was about to walk up the aisle to provide help when a trembling Amanda rose from the floor, balancing the omnibus on top of her fiery locks.

With a few poorly hidden whimpers of exertion, she finally managed to sit on her chair, her back perfectly straight. Her body trembled quite visibly and sweat formed in her brow. Her emerald eyes, alight with irreverent fire, stared daggers down at the blonde, as if saying ‘ _I don’t need your weak-ass shit_ ’.

Diana could only roll her eyes and go back to her lecture.

 

* * *

 

The door to Chariot’s office was hurriedly opened as Nelson rushed in, carrying the brunette who had given up on fighting over her shoulder. The other professors coming behind her cast a magic spell on the lock and set up a simple barrier to prevent any desperate love-infected girls from breaking in.

Finally free from Nelson’s grasp, Akko sat on the absent redhead teacher’s couch, already familiar with the furniture’s fabric. Alcor was perched on the guard railings of the catwalk, looking suspiciously at the teachers who had overrun his usually quiet and safe abode. Once he noticed the brunette, however, he squawked happily and flew over to the girl, perching himself on her thigh and using his head to push her palm, impatiently asking for pats. Akko giggled and happily complied.

“So,” Akko spoke up as she caressed Alcor, “can someone tell me what the heck’s going on?!”

“I’d like to ask the same thing, Ms. Kagari,” spoke a voice that immediately triggered a sharp chill to go down Akko’s spine. “It would seem that limiting your chicanery to explosions and petty food theft wasn’t enough, you had to go ahead and place the entire school under a spell. I cannot even begin to _imagine_ a punishment large enough to fit the severity of this event.” Finnelan, who had been among the other teachers in the room, wasn’t speaking loudly like usual, but her voice was still harsh enough to make the Japanese cringe.

“And I was so mean to poor Ms. Jansson as well,” lamented Badcock. “All because of you insufferable little rascal!”

“Hey, I didn’t mean to put the _entire_ school under a love spell, just Diana!” She covered her mouth as soon as the words got out. An impromptu love confession to the school’s faculty wasn’t the most embarrassing thing she’d done today by a large margin, but nonetheless, she wanted to kick her own butt for having a mouth that ran so easily.

‘ _Gosh, she said she loved me too, didn’t she?_ ’ Akko squealed internally at the thought.

The pointy-nosed teacher’s eye twitched. “So you’re admitting to attempting wanton magical manipulation of your fellow student? Tch. Ms. Holbrooke,” the woman turned to the principal, who sat with Ms. Badcock and a pair of other teachers, analyzing a map of the school. “These acts are unacceptable and grounds for an immediate expulsion!”

“Let’s not be hasty, Ms. Anne. Atsuko Kagari might be a troublemaker, but to expel her is a stretch,” spoke the principal sweetly. Finnelan drew a sharp breath when an open palm slapped her back.

“Dang right! Chill out, Anne! We can deal with that later. Besides, who ain’t done a crazy or two in the name of love, eh?” Nelson’s grin was toothy and stood in stark contrast to the tense mood in the makeshift operations room. “Why, in my day, I got a girl to use a blindfold and rode her a few thousand feet up ta see the carnival lights from up high!” She bellowed a laugh from the depths of her lungs. Finnelan was none too happy about the shrill sound assaulting her ears from mere inches away.

“Poor girl’s still doing therapy for her fear of heights,” Nelson shook her head solemnly.

Finnelan pinched the bridge of her nose in a way that reminded Akko of Diana. “Do that to me, ever, and I promise to personally have you demoted from your position at this academy.”

“Geeze, that’a way to talk to yer woman, Anne? No wonder you hadn’t gotten laid in years!”

Some of the teachers tried to hide their snickers behind closed fists. Finnelan’s rugged skin showed hints of warmth in them. “My academy has been turned upside down, there’s been a fire, and on top of that, someone broke into my office and stole my… uhm, stole important files from me.” Akko, who knew about her guilty pleasure candy stash from Wangari, saw right through the lie and snorted to herself. “This has nothing to do with my sex li-”

Akko raised her hand and shouted an ‘Oy!’ to the two bickering lovers, catching their attention.

“Ms. Finnelan, Ms. Nelson, can you not talk about your… uhm…” She twiddled her fingers, blushing. The couple gasped, and Finnelan cleared her throat, turning away from her girlfriend and furrowing her brow. Akko made a mental note to find a thorough memory wipe spell later, because the image of Finnelan doing the do was…

Urgh, why.

“Courtship or not, this has led to a catastrophe that we, honestly, are scrambling to resolve.” The old woman walked over to the brunette, her resolve restored and the wedges of her boots clicking intimidatingly as she lowered her scowl to meet Akko’s guilty and sweating features from up close. “What did you do this time? Let a Love Love Bee loose on campus? A mind control spell with terrible radius control?”

“Wait, mind control? No, no!” Akko waved her hands in front of her frantically, accidentally slapping Finnelan in the process. She immediately stood up and bowed to the woman with shouts of ‘ _gomenasai, senpai!_ ’. “A-anyway, no! I made a potion, well, Sucy made it really-”

“Keh-keh-keh!” cackled Lukić from her place by the table. “Sucy Manbaravan! I see my star student is as sharp as ever!” The white haired witch’s eyes had a dark shimmer to them, as though she was reveling in the chaos. She likely was.

Finnelan turned to Lukić. “So this is the work of alchemy. How do we fix this? This is your area of expertise, after all.”

The other teacher cackled again. “Such a strong potion would require rare ingredients to brew! I believe I am completely out of meru oak flowers. A shame, a shame,” she spoke, though her toothy grin betrayed her supposed dismay.

Akko’s eyes widened open as a realization hit her. She dove behind the couch, yelping and grabbing a pillow she pushed in front of herself as a shield. “You need to leave! Go away! Get out of here before you’re infected too!”

Finnelan’s eyes narrowed at the student she least appreciated. “Is this supposed to be some underhanded misleading tactic? You’re sorely mistaken if you believe you can get away with your antics by shooing us out, Ms. Kagari.”

“No, I mean, the potion!” She pointed to herself, eyes darting and looking for a escape route. Maybe out, through the window? She had survived quite large falls before. “If you stay around me for too long, you’ll fall in love with me!”

There was a silence among those present. It was broken my more of Lukić’s rock-gargle of a laughter. “Idiot girl! The potion, as you made it, would only affect those within the age range of puberty!”

Akko blinked, then let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Finnelan trying to smooch her with those cracked old lady lips was a mental image that had Akko considering a lobotomy.

“As if I could ever love a student as reckless as the likes of you,” Finnelan spoke, rolling her eyes. “Very well, Lukić, please prepare a list of ingredients and I’ll send someone to retrieve them.”

“Wait, you don’t need to! Sucy and I are already working on curing the infection!” She had accidentally called the Filipino out as an accomplice already, so she refrained from mentioning her other two friends. But Finnelan didn’t seem moved by her words.

“You’ve caused this mess, I doubt you could fix it, you little mischief maker.” Akko opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by the woman raising a hand. “You will stay put here in Ms. Callistis’ office, under the watch of our faculty, where you can no longer cause any more trouble for this academy. Have I been clear enough for you and your disastrously short attention span, Ms. Kagari?”

Akko crossed her arms and nodded, looking dejectedly to the side. Satisfied, Finnelan grabbed the list of ingredients from the alchemy teacher and called for a trio of professors to join her in the search.

On her way out, Finnelan only barely stopped to greet someone else coming in. “Good evening, Ms. Callistis.”

The unmistakable meek voice of Chariot du Nord spoke back. “Good evening, Ann- I-I mean, Ms. Finnelan!” The pointy-nosed witch grunted and left, leaving a mid-apologetic-bow Chariot behind, sighing.

Besides the twenty-six year old teacher, only Akko, Ms. Badcock, Ms. Holbrooke, Lukić and a teacher standing guard at the door were left. Alcor squawked upon seeing his owner.

“Oh, hey Chariot-sensei! Uhm, Ursula-sensei? I’m not quite sure which one to use yet.” Akko rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

“Hello, Akko.” The previously world-famous performer hadn’t yet turned to look at Akko, hidden behind a heavy stack of papers she was carrying. Once she finally set the weight down on her desk, she stayed there, taking a deep breath. “My, my, I’m out of shape…” she laughed nervously.

“So,” she said, turning to the brunette, a sad smile on her face. “You took it too far with the Diana issue, didn’t you?”

Just like with her roommates, Akko had confided in her teacher - almost a second mother to the Japanese witch - about her crush on the academy’s top student. Akko shot a meek smile back. She couldn’t discern the woman’s eyes, since the light of the desk lamp was glazing over her lenses. “Yeah. At least it kinda worked! Diana confessed to me earlier.”

“Oh, did she, now.” For whatever reason, Chariot’s voice had lost its warmth as soon as she’d turned her gaze to Akko, becoming somewhat monotonous. She hoped that she hadn’t crossed too great a line because of the potion incident. The last thing she wanted was to fall out of the graces of her favorite teacher.

“Yeah, though we didn’t get to talk about it since Nelson dragged me here.” Akko pouted. “Say, why are you guys here and not in Ms. Holbrooke’s office?”

Chariot had her back turned to Akko as she prepared two cups of tea. “The principal’s office had been raided by your… admirers. I think they were looking for your student file. So I offered mine.”

Akko’s features fell into a grimace. She ran both hands over her face, trying not to panic at the growing size of her future detention. How much more could this blasted potion drag her reputation through the mud?

Finally done, the French performer returned to the couch, handing Akko a cup of her usual brew of plum tea. The older witch, her taste more refined, had settled for Oolong. They drank in comfortable silence. Very often would the brunette come visit her idol simply to share a cup of tea and dabble in small talk, a comfortable routine.

But this time around, her teacher, whose head dropped slightly, looked tense.

“Chariot-sensei? Are you okay?” Akko set her cup aside precariously on the couch’s arm and placed her hand on top of Chariot’s.

The woman grasped her hand between hers. “I don’t like that Diana confessed to you,” she cut right to the chase, voice sharp and cold like an icicle. “She doesn’t deserve you.”

Akko recoiled. The redhead woman had been nothing but supportive of her crush for Diana until then, the reply coming as a shock. “B-but, Chariot-sensei! Diana is smart and nice! Why would you say that?”

“She’s nothing but an arrogant and cold girl, guided by a desperation for knowledge. Just like her…” Akko had a feeling she knew who Chariot was referring to. “You deserve someone who has the same fire in her heart as you do. Someone who will also seek joy in the world, by your side, as you two fill people’s hearts with wonder! Someone who will teach you the spectacle of love!”

Chariot grabbed Akko’s other hand with a strong grip and pulled her close, beads of sweat forming on her forehead from how intensely the French woman felt. From this up close, the brunette finally managed to see her sensei’s face clearly - her pursed lips, furrowed brow and flaming red eyes encircled by a pink tint.

“You need someone to help you learn, _ma petite protégée_.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do believe the rest of the chapters will come out fairly quickly now. I plan to end the fic by early November so I can start my next big fic (here's a hint: ladder or stepladder?).


	7. Saving Private Diana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pardon, this took me a bit longer than intended. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Akko let go of her teacher’s hands, scooting back into the couch’s arm as much as she could, almost bumping into her teacup. “Ahaha, well, I think I’m fine, sensei!” She forced a toothy smile. “I already learned a lot when I was finding the Words--”

“Nonsense!” Chariot shook her head, a dazed smile dancing through her lips. “There’s so much you can learn from me, Akko! You’re my apprentice. My beautiful and gorgeous little student, so full of potential…” She sighed, her words a drawl as though she were drunk.

Akko recalled Lukić’s explanation about the potion. At twenty six, Ms. Chariot was still terribly close to puberty range, being an young adult, so that’d explain why the potion had worked on her. But that fact alone wouldn’t help her in finding a way out of this situation.

“Y-you sure about that, sensei? I already said I don’t need to be like Shiny Chariot!” The brunette decided to run her mouth as her eyes darted around the room. The spells on the door had been reactivated the moment Finnelan and her group left, and it’d take far more expertise than the little witch had to disarm those. Not to mention she didn’t have a wand on her, her own having been left back in the classroom.

Chariot laughed, her voice like wind chimes against a nice breeze. Akko would appreciate the woman’s charisma more if it wasn’t currently tuned to intents far too nefarious and unsettling for her mind to think too long about.

“Of course you don’t, Akko. Shiny Chariot did wish to bring happiness to people’s hearts, but she acted with such disregard and abandon to achieve her dreams.” Daintily, she never broke her unnerving gaze on Akko through half-lidded eyes, pausing to sip her tea. “A girl like you, who has learned to work past her own selfishness and fears, doesn’t _need_ to be the next Shiny Chariot.” Setting her teacup down, she stood up and threw a hand out dramatically. “You’ll be far greater than I ever was, Shiny Akko!”

“Hey, keep it down, newcomer! Some people are trying to _work_ in here, you know!” shouted Badcock from her desk, her hands fidgeting as they usually did when the old teacher got irritated.  

Chariot blushed and apologized, sitting back down on the couch. Akko, meanwhile, couldn’t help but feel a bit flattered at her words. She wished those weren’t just words the woman was throwing out because she was infected, but because she really admired Akko. She hoped that sentiment, at least, would still ring true to her even after how stupid she’d been today.

“You’ve matured so much, Akko,” Chariot finished her previous thoughts. The brunette, stuck between flattery and anxiety, rubbed the nape of her neck meekly. She didn’t feel very mature after the chaos she caused, but she’d take it.

“Heh, thanks, Chariot-sen-”

A touch. A shiver running up Akko’s spine and neck. With much fear did she finally force her reluctant eyes to look at the slim hand currently resting on her thigh.

“And even if you’ll be a greater witch than I could ever be, there are many things about life you have to learn from someone who has been through them. Maybe it’s time someone taught you _another_ kind of magic.”

Her middle and index fingers walked up the expanse of Akko’s thigh before reaching her waist. The French witch leaned closer and closer and the alarms in the brunette’s head went off, screaming for her to get the heck out of Dodge.

After a moment of paralysis, Akko scooted backwards to escape from the offending touch, perching herself awkwardly on top of the couch’s arm. The teacup that had been resting there fell to the floor, breaking and spilling its contents. Akko bit her lip, wincing at the sharp sound of porcelain shattering. “Whoops. Sorry about that…“

“Oh, _sacrebleu_! You dropped your tea, sweetie.” Chariot took out her wand, using it to levitate the pieces of the broken teacup before disposing of them in a trash can. “Excuse me while I bring you some more, cutie~” Humming to herself, Chariot returned to the teapot.

Finally having an opening, Akko jumped over the couch and went to the desk of operations, desperately poking the blue-haired teacher sitting by it on the shoulder. “Psst! Professor Badcock, I need to talk to you!”

The womans annoyed eyes looked up from the map of the school grounds she’d been analyzing. Akko noticed that a circle had been drawn, encompassing all of the main portion of the campus within it. “Kagari, please be quiet! I am concentrating on a very important task.”

Tilting her head, the brunette couldn’t find anything else besides the map that the Numerology teacher could be working on. “You are?”

“W-why, the nerve…!” The tiny old woman balled her hands into fists, blood rushing into her face. “Of course I am! I am, well… it’s none of your business! You’re the one who caused this mess after all, weren’t you?!”

“Geeze, sorry, I guess!” Akko puffed her cheeks. Sure, she was a little rowdy and maybe set stuff on fire two or three or thirteen times more often than the usual person, but she saved magic and all that biz! She deserved a bit more leeway. “Look, that’s not important.” Here, her voice dropped into a “whisper” that was still far too loud to be secretive. “I think Char- I mean, professor Ursula, has been infected too!”

The small teacher adjusted her glasses, hair bobbing as her eyes wandered over to the redhead, currently calmly brewing her tea. Badcock raised an eyebrow. “She seems perfectly fine and composed to me. Your admirers, who may I remember have all been teenagers thus far, become downright feral, Ms. Kagari.”

“I know that!” Amanda blasting a corridor wall and starting a fire came to her mind. “But like, she was all touch-feely and saying weird stuff…”

“Akko~!”

With an ‘eep!’, Akko turned to her redhead teacher who was carrying a tray with two teacups and some biscuits. She shot a pleading look to Badcock, who just rolled her eyes and turned back to the map. “Tch. Such a brat, always looking to be the center of attention…”

Gulping, Akko resigned to her fate, returning to the couch. The French woman set the tray down on the table, taking a seat on the other end of the couch and smiling at the brunette. Nervously, Akko mouthed a ‘thanks’, her fingers slowly curling as she took a biscuit between their knuckles. She kept an eye on her teacher, prepared for any sudden movements of intense affection. She dipped the biscuit in her tea and then took a bite, chewing slowly.

“Oh!” Chariot laughed before mirroring her pupil’s motion. “I see you’re picking up on European customs, dearie.”

“Oh, yeah! It actually tastes nice with the right tea. Diana taught me to do that a while ago.”

A small cracking sound caught her attention - Chariot had snapped the biscuit she held between her fingers in half. “Oh, Diana. You don’t say.”

Akko gulped and her eyes darted to the door for a moment. Shouldn’t they be here to rescue her or something already?! She couldn’t do this alone! Or could she?

‘ _Gah, so much for acting independently. Come on, Akko, where’s that willpower you had when you escaped Hannah and Barbara?_ ’

“I think it’s time _I_ taught you some customs as well, then.”

Chariot leaned forward, placing both her hands on her student’s shoulders, eyes half-lidded as she spoke.

“Have you heard of French kissing, _mon amour_?”

 

* * *

 

“That’s an eighty five degree angle, not ninety.” Diana adjusted Avery’s hand so that she was holding her teacup like a perfect aristocrat would. “Now, drink… no, no slurping, quiet and small sips. Yes.” After giving the Canadian a look of approval, the blonde moved over to the shared desk where Amanda sat with Jasminka. Constanze was conspicuously missing, which piqued Diana’s curiosity.

“Where is Ms. Albrechtsberger, if I may inquire?”

“Ah, Contz? Fuck if I kn-” It didn’t take more than a single disapproving look from Diana for Amanda to straighten her back and clear her throat. “I, uh, am not… privy to… Conz- I mean, Constanze’s whereabouts. Ain’t…” The American groaned, struggling to drop her contractions. “I have not seen her since the cafeteria incident.”

Diana nodded, pleased and smiling smugly. This boot camp of sorts wasn’t hard at all to put together, given she had been extensively (and exhaustively) trained in etiquette, and was also no stranger to giving academic aid to her fellow students. Plus, she was getting some sweet revenge on O’Neill for teasing her and forcing her into this corner in the first place, though she didn’t really want to admit it to herself. It wasn’t very Cavendish-like to engage in such pettiness.

Yet, here she was, looking down at Amanda, forcing the rowdy rebel to act as a proper lady.

“Well, she must be fine. You, on the other hand, are not. Fix your posture, Missy.”

“What?! But I’m not even slouching anymore!”

“You are, however, placing both of your feet on the desk.”

“Oh, come on, even that?! The fuck is this, Cavendish, Soviet Russia?”

Jasminka coughed politely, and Amanda excused herself, hiding her blush behind a sip of tea while removing her feet off the desk.

“This is but simple etiquette that you must follow if you wish to, as you said, be like me.” Diana then allowed herself that most forbidden of facial expressions for a dignified aristocrat - a lopsided smirk. “But I will comprehend if you think you can’t deal with it.”

“That’s a challenge, ain’t it? Well, I’ll just bite your bait and show you I can be as fancy as ya ‘cross-the-pond butt. In my land, we ain’t known for refusing a fight.”

“Very well, then, finish your current task. I am sure you’ll find the next one quite delightful.”

Amanda crossed her legs, perfectly sipping from her perfectly angled cup of perfect temperature tea that the Cavendish had forced the witches to brew. Diana noticed that even her eyebrows sat at a fine line above their usual spot - the American was truly trying to emulate the Brit as well as she could, and the heiress felt a little bad about it. After all, in the end, all of them just wanted to impress Akko no matter what, even if it was because of a potion. She was sure Amanda would never do this much for Akko otherwise.

Is that how Akko had felt towards her when she used the potion, this regret? It made her feel a bit guilty for how harshly she had reprimanded the brunette earlier. But, she would have sufficient time for brooding over such issues after the day was over. She desperately wished to shower and sleep through the next morning - an unprecedented wish coming from her, considering her impeccable assiduity in class. Though with the state of things, Luna Nova would likely cease activities for a few days to repair the damage that had been done - both structural and psychological.

Once she was pleased with her pupils’ results, she announced they’d be moving into the next lesson.

“Now, ladies,” Diana had to resist looking directly at a certain redhead. “We will learn proper etiquette for attending a ball. First order of business, how to conduct yourself in gowns and high-heels.”

Amanda belted out an expletive, kicking the underside of her desk. 

 

* * *

 

The dorm room still smelled of potions, scented candles and destruction. So, exactly like it did most days. But at some point since they left it behind, someone had broken in and stolen more than a few of Akko’s underwear.

“Should have locked the door. Oh well, hope whoever got her stuff is having fun.” Sucy cracked the joints of her neck, pulling back the desk’s chair and sitting. Immediately, she started slicing the flowers while setting the other ingredients to boil.

Lotte settled for changing out of her dress in the meantime, which by now had become far too stuffy to be in. Once that was done, she called upon a cleaning spirit to help her set the room back in order.

After a few minutes, the redhead finished reorganizing the room, pushing the previously upturned bed against the wall with a grunt. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and sat on Sucy’s mattress, the spirit climbing upon her lap and yawning. The little poltergeist gave off a sickeningly sweet aroma that permeated the dorm, giving it a homely atmosphere.

Lotte, for the first time since she herself had been affected by the potion, felt at ease. “How’s the potion, Sucy?”

“Almost done,” the alchemist replied as she stirred the brew clockwise, “then we can go find those two and get this over with. It’s been fun to see them running around like headless chickens, but I want the school to be standing by the time I have to do my yoga routine.”

“I see. You know, you went kind of hard on Diana back there.” Lotte wasn’t so much berating the Filipino as she was being curious about how involved she was.

“Did I, now.” She didn’t speak for the next three minutes, until she finally finished stirring. “Alright, can you find Akko’s brush for me?”

After a quick scour of the room, Lotte found their roommate’s hairbrush under her bed - Akko was far from being the tidiest person. Sucy retrieved a single strand of hair, adding it to the potion, which bubbled and started turning black, the texture becoming like oil.

“I’m not a monster, Lotte. I may experiment with Akko, but I very much like her,” the mauve-haired witch confided. “I had a private talk with Diana earlier, about being less insecure of herself. All in all, I helped to get the two together, didn’t I?”

The Finnish was a bit surprised at the new information. “Well, yeah. That’s… nice of you.”

“Oh, I never said I did it for them. I just did it to amuse myself. The results just so happened to be good for the two love birds.”

After that, Sucy went silent as she transferred the liquid into a jug - she had used up all the flowers, so they had about three liters of the pitch-black brew. She cast a spell around the container that the Finnish didn’t quite recognize.

Lotte smiled. Despite the way she talked about, she knew that Sucy had had nobler intentions than simply playing around with the couple for her own amusement.

“I’ll say it again, that was very nice of you, Sucy.”

The alchemist tch’d, not confirming or denying her roommate’s statement. Now that the potion was complete, all they had to do was retrieve Akko and Diana, though they still had no idea about the former’s whereabouts.

 

* * *

 

Amanda sat under a desk, kicking away her high-heels and wiggling her toes, finally free of shoe-wear subservience. She’d finally evaded her teacher’s watchful eye to rest. She pushed up the bundle of fabric layers that made up the lower half of her gown, allowing the battered American to rest her rear on the floor. A long contented sigh escaped her lips.

Diana’s current lesson in how to behave at a ball involved dressing up in an enormous frilly Victorian gown, and Amanda was none too happy about it. ‘ _What the hell does Akko see in_ her _?_ ’

“Ms. O’Neill,” spoke a svelte voice accompanied by a pair of shoes landing in front of the desk, making Amanda jump and hit her head on the underside of the furniture, “it is not becoming of a lady to hide under a desk during a formal event.”

“Ugh, my noggin’...” The American crawled from under the desk, tripping twice on the seemingly unending bundles of cloth of her outfit. “Couldn’t you give me two minutes of rest, Cavendish? Jennifer’s tits…”

“Whatever bosoms there may be, a lady’s duty is not finished until she is back home. Then, and only then, may her composure falter.” Diana’s hands were interlaced as she looked from above at the rebel with those blue, piercing eyes. It was an intimidating posture. “So, if you’re expecting to fit into a role that will make you more attractive to Akko, I’d advise you to resume your task.”

Amanda nails dug into the desk as she supported herself on it to stand up. “You know,” she spoke with a raspy tone, her voice failing to fake smugness when fury was boiling in her stomach, “I’m starting to wonder if maybe this isn’t all your doing, Princess.”

Diana didn’t seem moved by the American’s poorly concealed feelings. “What do you mean by ‘this’, Amanda?”

Cursing as her foot was once again caught in the bundle of fabric, she stepped up to the heiress, jabbing a finger at her. “Akko told me something about a love potion. That’s what you used on her, isn’t it?!” she spoke loudly, catching the attention of everyone else in the vicinity.

“I assure you that I wouldn’t ever-”

“I mean, come on!” Amanda spat on the floor scornfully. “Akko would never, ever go for a prissy bitch like you.”

Diana tried to push down the anger inside her, fearing she might explode again. Nonetheless, she was still catty when she retorted. “And why do you think a ruthless and insensitive person like you would be more to her tastes?”

“At least I know how to fucking have fun!” the American seethed. “Not that you’d understand that concept even if someone shoved it in your perfect doll face.”

“This argument is pointless,” the blonde tutted, “as you have only ever felt anything for Akko from this morning onward.”

“The fuck are you talking about? I’ve liked Akko for months.”

Now, this caught Diana by her blindside. “You… you what?”

The American closed the space between the two, jabbing a finger at Diana’s chest. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve had a small crush on Akko for a while, so fucking what? Even someone like me can have a soft spot for a cute girl.”

So that would explain Amanda not instantly falling into the potion’s effect like Diana, something Akko had told her about at one point - it worked more slowly depending on a pre-existing feeling of love. That left the possibility of the prodigy herself being swept by the potion’s effects sooner or later. It had been quite a few hours already, though, so there was a good chance it wouldn’t be the case. Right?

“I see,” Diana conceded. She felt more sympathetic for the redhead now, but it didn’t mean she would let herself be pushed around. “Nonetheless, Akko has made her choice out of free volition. And frankly? This entire ‘class’ has been futile, a distraction. Feel free to change back into your usual attires, there’s nothing to be gained here. Certainly not Akko’s heart.” With the heels of her shoes clicking against the floor, Diana placed her hands on her back and walked away with a poker face.

“ _Murowa!_ ”

Diana’s athletic prowess allowed her to sidestep the spell retort. She’d already expected an aggressive retaliation from the enraged American.

“I’m gonna fucking make you eat those words, Cavendish.”

The American was ready to duel. The two of them had inevitably ended up in another fight situation. The crowd of girls around them started cheering Amanda on with cries of vengeance for Diana having ‘stolen Akko’ from them.

“I’m afraid that I’ve had quite the fulfilling meal earlier, O’Neill.” A catty smirk danced for just a fraction of a second on her lips. “Not that I believe you to be able to satisfy anyone.”

With a scream of rage, Amanda lunged at Diana with a fist closed so tightly it was white, the  other witch falling into a defensive stance. Both were interrupted by a shrill, familiar voice.

“H-hey, stop! Don’t fight!”

That unmistakable voice could only belong to the one to whom she’d given her heart. “Akko!”

In the hallway stood the brunette, fiddling with her fingers and adjusting her glasses, pushing away the strands of hair in front of her face as though unused to her own haircut. Her outburst had easily caught everyone’s attention, cutting the fight short. “W-why don’t you…” She stopped and turned her face to the left, as though expecting instructions from someone. After a couple of seconds, she gasped and blushed furiously. Her attempts at raising protest were met by a silencing hand from someone Diana couldn’t see.

Turning her crimson eyes back towards a expectant crowd, Akko gulped, shut her eyes and stammered out, “W-why don’t you fight over a… p-piece of me instead…?” She coughed into her hand, shuffling on her feet with uncharacteristic demureness. “F-first come, first serve…!”

She didn’t have to ask twice. The overly thirsty tide of girls rose under the storm of the Japanese witch’s suggestion, shoving each other as they tried to reach the door. Akko yelped loudly and made a run for it, every girl but Diana - who was utterly flummoxed by not only the girl appearing, but openly making herself available - filing out in pursuit of their muse.

“Whoops, ya snooze, ya lose, Cavendish!” Shouted Amanda from the top of the aisle, having been one of the first to dash for the brunette after changing back into her suit with a quick spell. “We’ll finish that duel ‘nother time, catch ya once I’m done smooching that cutie!”

And with that, Diana was left wondering what in the name of the Nine Olde had happened for the umpteenth time that day. Her mind was not built for such an onslaught of bizarreness, that was better suited to someone like Akko.

“So,” drawled a voice from behind Diana’s ear, “there you go, I kept my promise and rescued you.”

Rather than be startled, Diana opted for throwing a fist behind her at whoever had been stupid enough to sneak up on her. Sadly for the star student, Sucy was freakishly good with her limbo movements, the Filipino leaning her arch back by almost a full ninety degrees.

“The Wachowski sisters would be so proud of me,” the alchemist commented lazily. “Is that how you greet your savior? I’m appalled, Diana.”

“What are you talking about?” Diana didn’t have any more patience for teasing after her mouth-off with Amanda. “When did you find Akko, and what kind of stupid plan was that? She could very well be in danger now.”

“Much as I love to torture that idiot, I still have no idea where she is. That was Lotte you just saw.”

“Oh.” That would explain how off this ‘Akko’ acted. “Well, it was effective but rather reckless of you two.”

Sucy could only shrug. “Means, ends, you know how it goes.” From her tote bag, she drew the vial with the potion. “We’re all set to go, despite being two women short. I think we can do the spell by ourselves if you want to.”

The blonde, as Sucy had dreadfully expected, shook her head in denial. “We’re all in this together. I’m not abandoning either of them to be trampled by those infected girls.”

“Ugh, fine. You goody two-shoes people will be the death of the Manbavaran dynasty, frankly.” Sucy extended a hand in front of the heiress, as though presenting the corridor. “Lead the way, o wise one.”

The blonde climbed the steps leading outside, her hand instinctively reaching for her chin as she thought about how to proceed. Where could Akko be?

Then, the sound of glass shattering outside caught her ears. Perhaps she’d start there.

 

* * *

 

Alcor squawked angrily from where he glided in the air, flying in circles over Akko and his owner. Having decided that enough subtlety was enough, the brunette decided to quite literally spill the tea by flipping the table over and hiding behind it to cover from an increasingly touch-feely Chariot du Nord.

Badcock, meanwhile, seemed to finally have wisened up to the situation and so did the few remaining teachers in the room. “She’s infected! C-Callistis is infected!” Thrust into a sudden leadership position, the woman shook from head to toe. “S-seize her! I think! Just do something!”

All the teachers who could - Pisces was relegated to watching from her bowl - were pointing their wands at the redhead idol of past times. Chariot didn’t flinch at the encirclement.

“Oh, I see. Are you planning to keep me from my beautiful little Akko?” She turned to face the teachers, extending her hand out and doing a ‘come hither’ motion. “I’d like to see you try and stop me.”

“Hah, a-as if!” rebutted Badcock. “You’re outnumbered, this will be easy as pie! Ladies, attack!” A wave of spells flew towards the French, who easily leaped over it before landing in front of a surprised teacher and knocking her off her feet with a roundhouse kick. Akko, meanwhile, kept shielding herself behind the table while the battle ensued.

‘ _Gah, this is bad,_ ’ she thought as Badcock was kicked into a wall, instantly passing out from the impact. ‘ _Chariot is too fit for them. And if she defeats everyone, I’ll have no way of escaping!_ ’ She glanced at the circular window on the top of the room. ‘ _Too many floors, if only I had a rope or a…_ ’

A light bulb went off in her head. She jumped out of her hideout and sneaked towards a staircase that led towards the catwalk of the room, eyeing an object propped against the wall.

Chariot barrel-rolled to avoid an explosion from one of Lukić’s bomb potions, apparently stashed inside her enormous robes ‘just in case’. Yet again, Akko was convinced that the faculty members of this school could use a psychiatric evaluation, but she was grateful for the time it bought her.

The redhead witch strode forward, far faster than a witch Lukić’s age could react, and grabbed her by the armpit before suplexing the old lady. It was utterly brutal and Akko winced, but at least she’d reached her goal while the bloodshed went on.

Chariot huffed, it’d been a few months since she’d last engaged in a battle, her last one having been with Croix. She may have loved the Italian witch before, but she’d clearly fallen to the pits of evil and, regretful or not, she was not a shining star with a heart that burnt like the guts of a dragon. No, the French only had eyes for that most amazing and pure of souls, which was now finally within her grasp, to be adored and caressed.

Oh, what would others think! A student and a teacher?

A normal-minded version of Chariot would be appalled and disgusted, but this one drooled, relishing in the fetish. Her lewd and horribly inappropriate thoughts were broken, then, by a shout from her beloved.

" _Tia Freyre!_ "

The former entrepreneur turned to see Akko sitting on her broom, kicking her legs as she slowly raised into the air on top of a broom that spasmed under her control. The French woman’s broom had been left to collect dust ever since she contracted the Wagandea’s curse, and Akko decided to take full advantage of that. If she could just escape through the window, Chariot wouldn’t be able to follow her and she could regroup with the others.

“Akko~!” Chariot sing-sung. “You’re not thinking of leaving yet, are you, _cherie_? Non, non, our evening tea is not done yet. And…” she bit her lower lip, “I was about to ask you to dip your biscuit into my tea, if you know what I mean~”

“Nope, nope, nope,” Akko started chanting as she rose into the air, one of her eyes twitching as she finally broke. She crouched her right leg and then kicked it back to propel herself forwards toward the window as fast as her novice broom skills allowed. “Nope, nope, _nooope_ ~!”

“ _Mon amour, attendez-vous pour moi!_ ” With a powerful kick, Chariot threw herself up in the air and only barely grabbed to the bristles of the broom just as the brunette reached the window. Shards exploded through the air as the duo careened into the frame, breaking through it with a loud shatter.

Akko cursed internally when she saw her teacher behind her. She pushed the end of her broom down for a nosedive, since it’d be too dangerous for her to shake the teacher off so high above the ground. At the speed they were at, however, she was crossing dozens of meters before getting closer to the floor, moving further away from the campus. She could see New Moon Tower, their final destination, looming closer.

She tried to swerve to the right in an attempt to turn back to the school, but just as her hands, tight around the wooden handle, pushed sideways, she crashed against something that immediately broke her inertia.

A couple seconds later Akko, her head ringing from the impact, saw the ground coming closer to her. From the side of her vision she saw Chariot also falling, both of them having nothing to grasp on to. Above her, a turquoise light flickered far above campus.

She wondered if she should scream or flail or do something, but would it be any use? This was just like the time she’d fallen from the Shiny Volley when pursuing the missile. Only now there wouldn’t be a Shooting Star to come and sweep her off her doom.

‘ _Yeah. I’m not very good at that whole Phaidoari Afairynghor thing after all, am I? Heh. Sorry, Dia, I failed you again by not being self-reliant._ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just three chapters left now! I'm not sure how long it'll be 'til the end of the fic since I now have a job (yay, me!) that I'll be starting on the 6th, but rest assured I won't abandon this fic, especially so close to the end.
> 
>  
> 
> Tune in next time for "Finale I – The Tower of Love is a Curious Thing".


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